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Nintendo brought its miniature Nintendo Entertainment System — known officially as the NES Classic Edition — to San Diego Comic-Con this week, giving old school gaming fans a look at the wee console that's coming this November.
While we didn't get to actually play with the NES Classic Edition, we did manage to get an up close and personal look at the device. The mini NES is tiny — no wider than an NES controller. Speaking of controllers, the NES Classic Edition controller looks like a perfect recreation of the game pad that first debuted in 1985. It's also worth noting that the cord that connects the controller to the NES Classic Edition is distressingly short.
For a detailed look at the NES Classic Edition and the box art for the device, check out the photo gallery below.
The NES Classic Edition is slated to arrive Nov. 11, 2016 and packs in 30 classic NES games, like Super Mario Bros., Mega Man 2, Final Fantasy, Castlevania, Kid Icarus, Excitebike and more.
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Tanya M. Bransford Hennepin County District Court JudgeTanya M. Bransford
Remember Guava LLC v. Merkel? A collusive Prenda’s lawsuit filed in Hennepin County court in Minneapolis? I thought that this lawsuit was over, and I was gladly surprised to learn (hat tip to Jason Sweet) that yesterday Judge Tanya M. Bransford ordered Prenda parties (Guava LLC, Michael Dugas and Paul Hansmeier’s Alpha Law Firm) to jointly and severally pay $63,367.02 in attorney fees.
What we have at this moment is the order only, a detailed memorandum is yet to come. I will update this post when it is up.
The last paragraph in this order is worth mentioning: it preemptively kills any Prenda’s trolling lawsuit in Minnesota’s Hennepin County (if the gang dares to return to trolling, which is highly unlikely).
Plaintiff Guava LLC, Michael K. Dugas, Esq., Alpha Law Firm LLC and any of their agents, officers, directors, employees, representatives, affiliates, and successors, are hereby enjoined from filing any future civil action against the John Does or the ISPs, without first posting a bond with the Court in the amount of $10,000, or such other amount as the Court deems appropriate, and without first obtaining a certificate of authority from the Minnesota Secretary of State.
Kudos to the judge: unlike Illinois’ Cook County’s Judge Sanjay Taylor, who knew that a similar Guava lawsuit was a fraud but cowardly allowed it to be dismissed and forgotten, Judge Bransford made sure that justice was served.
Coverage
Update
9/3/2013
As promised, Judge Brandsford’s Memorandum following her order is available.
The most notable is the Footnote 3 that will undeniably cast a dark shadow on the future law career of Michael Dugas:
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Image copyright Amanda Lockey Image caption In July three other grenades found on a beach in the Dovercourt area of Harwich were detonated
A dog walker was seen throwing a hand grenade for a pet to chase by an off-duty explosives expert, police said.
The grenade, found earlier and safely removed, is the fifth to wash up on a Harwich beach in the past five weeks.
Another grenade found near West End Lane on Saturday was detonated by experts and three others were found near Lower Marine Parade on 12 July.
Essex Police said a sunken wartime crate may have been disturbed, causing the grenades to appear on the beach.
"That crate might be breaking up or has been disturbed by dredging in the port, and has resulted in these five devices being washed ashore along the same stretch of beach," Insp Paul Butcher said.
The latest grenade was found earlier at Marine Parade. Once retrieved from the dog owner it was removed by bomb disposal officers.
Insp Butcher said people should be "vigilant" if visiting the beach and call the police if they found anything that could be an explosive.
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Speaking to reporters Monday at the White House, Press Secretary Jay Carney couldn't directly say whether people who have "signed up" for Obamacare will actually have health insurance starting on January 1.
"We're telling consumers if they're not sure if they're enrolled they should call the insurer directly," Carney said.
Millions of Americans have lost their health insurance thanks to Obamacare and have been unable to successfully sign up for another plan. Five-million Americans have lost their health insurance plans while only 100,000 people have either signed up for Obamacare or have put a plan in their shopping cart on Healthcare.gov or through state-based exchanges.
The White House is touting an improved website, but insurers are reporting that data and personal information from Obamacare enrollees is being jumbled before it gets to them and therefore, people who have signed up, don't necessarily have health insurance coverage.
When pressed on the White House not meeting the November 30 deadline for the website to be completely fixed, Carney referred to the deadline as a simple stepping stone for the overall Obamacare rollout process.
"This was a marker along the road about the progress we needed to make," Carney said. "We said it wouldn't happen all at once...We're not done with the work that needs to be done on that website but I think we've passed an important milestone in getting in to work for the vast majority of users."
As of today, Healthcare.gov can handle 50,000 users at a time on the site. In the age of Amazon and Facebook, that's hardly a success. Today is Cyber Monday, which means Amazon will process orders for more than 13 million items.
"The end game is not the most effective website we can build," Carney said. "We are confident that we've achieved significant improvement and functionality in the website...We never said there wouldn't be any problems moving forward or an error website."
Carney also blamed Republicans for Obamacare delays.
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Connecticut Democrats are throwing their weight behind the campaign pressing Starbucks to prohibit firearms in their coffee shops nationwide.
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Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy Christopher (Chris) Scott MurphyPush to end U.S. support for Saudi war hits Senate setback Feehery: Defining what socialism is (and isn’t) Avoiding the tragedy of Brexit MORE and Rep. Elizabeth Esty Elizabeth Henderson EstyConnecticut elects first black congresswoman Former aides alleging sexual harassment on Capitol Hill urge congressional action Rising Dem star in Connecticut says people like me ‘deserve a seat at the table’ in Congress MORE endorsed a recent letter, spearheaded by family members of victims of December's shooting massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, asking Starbucks Chief Executive Howard Schultz to help "foster a culture of peace and ban guns from your stores."
The Starbucks gun policy, which allows customers to carry firearms, including concealed weapons, in accordance with local laws, "undermines the safety and well-being of our citizens," the signers say.
"[T]o prevent another Sandy Hook, we as a society must prioritize the sanctity of human life over the individual’s 'right to carry,'" the letter reads.
The gun control advocates are asking Shultz to meet them at the Starbucks in Newtown, Conn., site of the Sandy Hook tragedy, and discuss the issue over (what else?) cups of coffee.
Responding to the letter, Schultz spoke by phone last weekend with Gilles Rousseau, the father of Sandy Hook victim Lauren Rousseau, according to Po Murray, vice chairman of the Newtown Action Alliance, an advocacy group that helped organize the letter. Lauren Rousseau was a teacher at Sandy Hook, and a Starbucks barista, who was killed during the shooting.
Murray said the two had "a nice conversation," but Schultz did not commit to a meeting with the advocates.
"Nothing's firm," Murray said Thursday by phone, adding, "We would love Howard Schultz to come to Newtown."
Starbucks spokeswoman Jamie Riley confirmed this week that the company has responded directly to the letter but declined to provide details.
Riley also defended the company's gun policy, arguing that it should be up to legislators — not Starbucks — to decide what restrictions, if any, are necessary on gun possession.
"Gun violence is an issue we take very seriously," Riley said.
Gun control advocates are quick to point out that Starbucks does not allow its employees to carry guns and wonder why there's a discrepancy between workers and customers.
"When it's their safety, they care a little bit more," one gun control advocate charged this week.
Riley said "safety is certainly a consideration" in the company's ban on employees carrying guns.
It's hardly the first time Starbucks has been pressured to prohibit guns in their stores. The National Gun Victims Action Council, a Chicago-based advocacy group, has been pushing the coffee giant for years to alter its policies, to no avail.
Starbucks's position stands in contrast to a long list of other national companies, including Peet's Coffee, IKEA and Disney, which have barred firearms in their stores and vacation parks.
Starbucks's resistance to the pressure campaigns has not been overlooked by gun-rights groups, which have periodically staged "Starbucks Appreciation Days," when gun owners are encouraged to carry firearms into their local Starbucks shops.
Those events, which are not sponsored by Starbucks, have put the company in a somewhat awkward spot, caught between a desire to cater to customers of all ideologies and a fear of stirring a political controversy with the potential to alienate those wary of public displays of firepower.
Highlighting that dilemma, Starbucks closed the Newtown store early on one such "appreciation day" this month to preclude a standoff between gun-rights groups and gun control advocates.
Chris Carr, Starbucks executive vice president, said the decision was made "out of respect for Newtown and everything the community has been through."
"[W]e appreciate that our customers share diverse points of view on issues that matter to them," Carr said at the time. "We also believe in being sensitive to each community we serve."
Connecticut became ground zero in the congressional fight over gun restrictions after December's tragedy at Sandy Hook, where a 20-year-old gunman killed 20 young schoolchildren and six educators before fatally shooting himself.
The scale of the tragedy, combined with the ages of the victims, ignited a national discussion about the appropriateness of the nation's gun laws and the role of Congress in fighting gun violence.
President Obama launched an effort to tighten the nation's gun laws, including proposals to ban military-style assault rifles and high-capacity ammunition magazines. The campaign was sunk by the Senate in April, when legislation expanding background checks on potential gun buyers was defeated by a Republican filibuster. The GOP majority in the House, meanwhile, has shown no interest in putting new limits on guns.
Blumenthal, Murphy and Esty have all been vocal supporters of tougher federal gun laws in the wake of the Sandy Hook tragedy.
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Quest menstrual pad deodorant (two ads and can) The older ad appeared in March 1937 for a product of International Cellucotton Products Co., which made Kotex. Kimberley-Clark, which today makes Kotex, started that company about 1920 to make Kotex, apparently because it did not want menstruation associated with K-C. A friend of MUM in California gave the can (below the ad) to this museum. It looks as if it's more recent than the ad. What causes the characteristic odor of menstruation? You won't like the answer. The second ad is from an American magazine, January, 1959. Amolin, The Personal Deodorant Powder - Ria panty pads (German) - Zero-Jel vaginal cream
What causes the characteristic odor of menstruation? You won't like the answer. © 1998, 2002 Harry Finley. It is illegal to reproduce or distribute any of the work on this Web site in any manner or
medium without written permission of the author. Please report suspected violations to [email protected]
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"This all puts a lie to Mr Rudd's claim of a black hole of $70 billion." Mr Hockey and shadow finance minister Mr Robb also announced the Coalition's infrastructure package, which they said formed the "final part of the Coalition's comprehensive economic plan". Shadow treasurer Joe Hockey Credit:Alex Ellinghausen The Coalition would improve the budget bottom line by more than $6 billion and would increase spending to health and education, Mr Hockey said. He said that a growth in foreign aid funding would be reduced by $4.5 billion over the forward estimates to help fund "essential infrastructure" in Australia.
‘‘We can’t continue to fund a massive increase in foreign aid at the expense of investment in the Australian economy," he said. ‘‘So we have to cut the growth in foreign aid, to fund Australian infrastructure because the stronger the Australian economy, the more generous we can be in future.’’ The Coalition has also removed the timeline for Australia to contribute 0.5 per cent of its Gross National Income to overseas aid - which was part of Australia's commitment to the Millennium Development Goals. Labor has twice delayed this goal but is currently due to reach the target by 2017-18. The Coalition is simply remaining "committed" to the "target", saying it cannot name a date because of the state of the budget after six years of Labor government.
The Coalition's Foreign Affairs Policy - released on Thursday afternoon - also says: "We are concerned about the rapid increase in foreign aid ... in light of real concerns about the ability of AusAID and other agencies to manage such a programme efficiently and effectively." Mr Hockey also said that a Coalition government would 're-phase' the Murray-Darling water buyback scheme. The delays to the scheme will save $650 million by spreading four years' worth of spending over six. A further 0.25 per cent efficiency dividend on the public service is expected to generate $428 million, "through prudent limitations on government advertising and consultancies as well as on government travel".
Click here for the Coalition's election commitment costings
Click here for the budget impacts of the costings The Coalition's figures show it expects to save $14.6 billion from axing the mining tax, saving $18.6 billion in spending associated with Labor's tax, minus $3.7 billion in foregone revenue from the tax. Among the measures to be scrapped that would have been funded from the mining tax are the schoolkids' bonus and low-income superannuation contributions. Costings scrutiny
Mr Hockey has released the Coalition's final costings amid fierce criticism from Labor, who has argued that the opposition has been evading scrutiny on their plans. In his address to the National Press Club on Thursday, before the costings were released, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd attacked Mr Abbott for holding back the information until the blackout of election advertising on radio and TV had kicked in. Mr Hockey hit back at Labor's claims the Coalition would cut $70 billion from the bottom line. "We are actually increasing the funding for health and education," he said. "That's what we're doing. Now, Kevin Rudd said 'cut, cut, cut'. We're not cutting health, we're not cutting education. And we're not cutting Defence. As you can see, our numbers are plainly there. Now, if there is waste, if there is waste, if there is waste, of course we will get rid of waste. I think that's the appropriate thing to do."
He defended the timing of the Coalition’s costings, which come just two days before voters head to the polls. ‘‘You know the fact is, Labor in its costings yesterday, which it released and only partially released, had billions of dollars that was unfunded from some mysterious pool in the budget that they haven't told anyone about,’’ Mr Hockey said. ‘‘But Kevin Rudd's thought bubbles haven't been funded. His thought bubble on the Northern Territory: unfunded. His thought bubble on a railway between Brisbane and Melbourne: unfunded. His next thought bubble I was expecting was going to be to put Australians on the moon by 2050.’’ Infrastructure focus The Coalition has singled out infrastructure as a key part of its economic plan, with Coalition leader Tony Abbott saying repeatedly in the lead up to the election that he wanted to be known as an "Infrastructure Prime Minister".
The infrastructure package will involve "almost" $5 billion in extra funding over the forward estimates, including $1.5 billion of Melbourne’s controversial east-west Link, an 80/20 share of the Bruce Highway with Queensland, and spending on the WestConnex project in Sydney. But some infrastructure projects face the axe as part of a clear shift away from federal funding for public transport. The Coalition will save the budget $75 million by not proceeding with a Melbourne metro rail project, $453 million by abandoning Brisbane's cross-river rail plan, and $100 million by discontinuing Perth urban rail public transport funding. Mr Hockey and Mr Robb said the infrastructure package would be funded from a "reprioritisation" of existing budget resources as well as the reduction in the growth of foreign aid spending. The shadow treasurer said the Coalition would establish a National Commission of Audit to focus on "getting rid of the waste", and improving the "efficiency" of the public service in Canberra.
"We've been able to identify projects like $160,000 in examinations of reproductive technology in Egypt," he said. "We have to get rid of the waste, have to get rid of the waste, have a more efficient public sector. That's what our commission of audit will do." The Coalition's education spending includes $70 million to encourage public schools to turn semi-independent and $60 million for the new Colombo Plan, but the opposition has confirmed it will cut $23 million earmarked for the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority. The Coalition will also scrap the development of an Australian Baccalaureate, saving $5 million. The program would have given secondary students the chance to earn a certificate of international standing similar to the British 'A' level and the French Baccalaureate.
Deputy Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was quick to slam the Coalition's costings on Thursday afternoon. "They're not policy costings, they're as farce," Mr Albanese told Sky News. "What we aren't seeing is any of the documentation for any of this work. They've been hiding their costings, they've been hiding their candidates." Finance Minister Penny Wong said the release of the costings less than 48 hours before the election, ‘‘really just shows what we’ve been saying for some time ... the Coalition is hiding things from the Australian people’’. ‘‘It’s an issue about what’s not on the documents ... what hasn’t been released to the Australian people.
‘‘This is all about hiding your cuts until after the election.’’ Foreign aid savings Greens leader Christine Milne criticised the Coalition for not submitting its asylum seeker, climate change and broadband policies to the Parliamentary Budget Office for this most recent round of costings. "Three signature issues, no costings," she said. The Greens leader also said the reduction in foreign aid spending to fund domestic infrastructure was "shocking".
"Tony Abbott is not only bad for this country, he is bad for the region." UNICEF Australia chief executive Norman Gillespie said Mr Hockey's $4.5 billion cut to planned foreign aid increases was "at the expense of children’s lives". “Joe Hockey would have us believe they can wait and that Australia can’t afford to fund foreign aid but I have to disagree," he said. "We are a strong OECD country, yet we are fast becoming the least generous when it comes to reducing global poverty. “It’s clear the Coalition no longer has the same desire to deliver on poverty reduction and good governance it held during the Howard years."
Care Australia spokesman Andrew Buchanan said the Coalition's commitment to keeping the millennium development goal at an undisclosed future date ''lacks credibility and substance without a timeframe". "In light of Australia taking over the presidency of the UN Security Council it really undermines Australia's reputation on the world stage," he said. The Community and Public Sector Union said the announcement of the extra efficiency dividend, which would take it to 2.5 per cent in 2014-15, would see services cut. "This will knock services around the country for six. Centrelink queues will get longer, there'll be fewer people inspecting at Quarantine and fewer people checking the weather at the Bureau of Meteorology," national secretary Nadine Flood said. Earlier on Thursday, Mr Abbott argued that "no opposition in our history" had been as thorough with its costings than the Coalition.
The policy costings have been scrutinised by the independent Parliamentary Budget Office and a "panel of review" made up of three "eminent" experts: former secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet Peter Shergold, economist Geoff Carmody and former Queensland auditor-general Len Scanlan. Loading "These three eminent Australians have confirmed that they are of the opinion that the final policy costings provided by the Coalition ... are based on reasonable assumptions and calculations," Mr Hockey and Mr Robb said. With Daniel Hurst
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A little over a year ago, four friends and I shut down all five pipelines carrying tar sands crude oil into the United States by using emergency shut-off valves. As recent months have made clear, climate change is not only an imminent threat; it is an existing catastrophe. It’s going to get worse, and tar sands oil—the dirtiest oil on Earth—is one of the reasons.
We did this very, very carefully—after talking to pipeline engineers, and doing our own research. Before we touched a thing, we called the pipeline companies twice to warn them, and let them turn off the pipelines themselves if they thought that was better; all of them did so.
We knew we were at risk for years in prison. But the nation needs to wake up now to what’s coming our way if we don’t reduce emissions boldly and fast; business as usual is now genocidal.
In shutting off the pipelines, we hoped to be part of that wake-up, to put ourselves in legal jeopardy in order to state dramatically and unambiguously that normal methods of political action and protest are simply not working with anywhere near the speed that we need them to.
One major hope of ours was to set legal precedent by using the “necessity defense” and bringing in expert witnesses to testify that because of the egregious nature of tar sands crude and the urgency of the climate crisis, we’d actually been acting in accordance with higher laws.
The classic example of a legitimate use of the necessity defense is when someone is arrested for breaking and entering after they hear a baby crying in a burning building, and rush in to save her.
Anti-Trump protesters risk 60 years in jail. Is dissent a crime? | Yael Bromberg and Eirik Cheverud Read more
Because it requires a high bar of proof—you must have tried everything else, the danger must be imminent, the action must be likely to be effective—courts seldom even allow this defense to be argued, or expert witnesses to be brought; their only concern, generally, is did you break and enter? Not why.
Three of our trials (which are in four states) had already rejected the use of the necessity defense. In North Dakota, the judge said essentially “I’m not going to let you put US energy policy on trial”. But recently, I and the other Minnesota defendants were finally granted it.
I have little doubt that the awful weather events of the last couple of months played some role in this—it’s not just scientists seeing the truth anymore: the building is indeed burning, and all the world’s babies are in it.
I was struck by the North Dakota judge’s implicit understanding that letting science be spoken in her courtroom would have had the effect of putting energy policy on trial—of reversing, in effect, who was the defendant, and who the prosecutor.
We had no demagogues lined up; we had the nation’s pre-eminent climate scientist ready, as well as two people who were to speak on the effectiveness of actions such as ours (often referred to as nonviolent resistance). How far awry must a system go, before the laws of physics are forbidden in a court of law?
Yet it is indeed a dangerous thing to speak the truth sometimes—dangerous in particular to those who have been lying to us for decades, and who have gotten very, very rich by doing so. Those who are also, at the moment, running our country.
So I find myself feeling peculiarly exposed now. When I first heard the news, elated, I called and texted and emailed family and friends. I deeply regretted that my mother—who died in June—didn’t live long enough to see us do our best to change legal history.
I released 2,000 minks from a fur farm. Now I'm a convicted terrorist | Kevin Johnson Read more
I wish she had known that a judge had been persuaded by the legitimacy of our argument (if not yet of its rightness)—a judge, no less, in a county where the pipeline company, Enbridge, is the single largest property tax payer.
I’m heartened by the way the law can be supple—not a thing that, once set, holds that exact shape forever (or we’d still have slavery, and I couldn’t vote or marry), but a thing that responds—slowly—to our evolving understanding of what is just and true.
When it comes to climate change, there’s little enough to feel heartened by, so I’ll take it.
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Game Time: 7:00PM CDT
TV/Radio: NBCSN, CBC, RDS/WGN720
You Bet That I’ve Got Something Personal Against You: The Royal Half, Jewels From The Crown, Battle of California
After two pretty thrilling games, things now end up on back on Madison for one final showdown as the Hawks were able to upset the Kings in LA on Friday. The big question is simply – how much do the Hawks have left in the tank?
As Fels stated after Wednesday’s game, the Hawks were running in the red for just about the whole game. And of course they did with with largely only 9 forwards. Things were more of the same Friday night. Bollig played only 6:46, Handzus only 9:25. Patrick Kane meanwhile played 20:40, more than any other forward and more than even Seabrook. It certainly didn’t hurt his game in the third though.
In two games where the Hawks have pushed themselves to the limit, they’re going to have to go even further tonight. And they’re still likely doing it with just nine guys up front. The lines from a light skate this morning are:
29-19-81
20-65-88
10-16-28
52-26-23
So yeah, Versteeg is back in there over Regin but at least that’s better than Brookbank playing on the fourth line… maybe?
We’ve wasted enough time talking about the fourth line though. It’s not going to change and they’re mostly going to be stapled to the bench however this game plays out. The comforting fact is that we’ll still have Saad and Shaw skating with Kane. When they’re unleashed, it’s a struggle for the Kings to keep up. They essentially nullified the Kings advantage on the second line which was what was killing them in the first 4 games. Putting together that mixture of skill with the speed they now have makes life hell on the Kings defenders. The forecheck is getting to the pucks and causing mistakes (look for more failed clearing attempts from the Kings if it keeps up) and they’re getting beaten to rebounds. If the Kings play a forward and defender coming out to attack Kane, all he really needs to do is throw it on net where Shaw and Saad have been causing problems. It could be that we see Drew Doughty coming to take on Kane. It’s worked in the past. But that leaves a much weaker second pairing against Toews and Hossa.
And when we start talking about rebounds, we clearly have to focus on the goalies. Neither of them have been great this series. Crawford has come back down to earth from his highs in the first two rounds and Quick has looked somewhat pedestrian. He’s making big saves when it counts though. There’s been several in each of the games, some of which likely either kept the Kings in it or damn near gave them the win. If the Sharp or Seabrook were able to convert on their prime chances, we may not be facing this close of a series.
That’s not saying Quick is responsible for the wins directly though. They haven’t been games he’s stolen just where he’s able to show his brilliance in the right spot. I’m not counting on a goalie battle tonight since both goalies have combined to give up 16 goals in the last two games.
If there’s anyone that could really easily be the difference maker though, it could be Patrick Sharp playing on the third line. We written many times about his struggles so far this post-season but there were flashes from him on Friday that makes me think he’s either getting better or not caring about the pain he almost certainly is in. Lined up with Kruger and Smith just screams “bum-slayers”. Sharp had one of his better games possession wise Friday. If there’s anything left in his tank, now is the time to go all out.
This is going to be a game of mistakes. Whoever makes the least is pretty likely to come out on top. The Hawks may have the advantage the last few games in the strength of play but the Kings have still shown that they can and will jump on top of any mistake the Hawks give them. Seabrook hesitates getting to the puck behind the net and Zus is out of position again – that’ll be a goal damn near every time. So the key, as always, is to play hard and fast but also to play as smart as you can. And yes, that still means staying the hell out of the penalty box. The Kings PP hasn’t reached its lights out status it was humming along at for most of the series against the Ducks and the first 4 games of this series in the last two. If the Hawks win the special teams battle, they can win the game.
So there’s numbers and trends for both teams to feel comfortable about. The Kings have won two Game 7’s already this year, both on the road. They have slightly more experience than the Hawks in general when the series goes to 7. And we all know the Hawks record in elimination games the last few years. It’s unstoppable force meeting immovable object. Something will have to give. It’s not going to be a fun ride. Fels and I may end up throwing punches at each other before it’s out but lets hope for our season to continue.
Let’s Go Hawks
If you’re heading to tonight’s game, make sure you pick up a copy of our game program outside the U.C. If you aren’t, you can get the PDF right here:
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Many in Waynesboro are devastated from the loss of Wayne Lanes bowling alley after its roof collapsed Saturday night.
The family who owned and operated Wayne Lanes for 35 years says they have no words to describe how they feel.
On Monday the owner of Wayne Lanes said his business is at a total loss.
City fire officials condemned the bowling alley after heavy snowfall caused the collapse. The owner says he has insurance but does not know whether he will rebuild.
A handful of longtime employees are now searching for new jobs and many in the community are heartbroken.
After nine years working for Wayne Lanes bowling alley, Jetanna Eckard is heartbroken to see it like this.
"This is my life, I've been here I mean every day we dedicated everything to it. Birthday parties, families, just I mean a lot of people have grown up in the bowling alley," Eckard said.
Some say Wayne Lanes was more than just a bowling venue.
"It's not a building it’s their livelihood and so many memories have been made here," Donna Dedrick, a mother of an employee, said.
"My dad went here and my dad knows a lot about it so it’s kind of like memories of my family," Adam Tinsley, who lives near by the building, said.
Even in sadness, they're holding out hope that Wayne Lanes will rise from the rubble again.
"Just pray and if everybody works together, we can build this back. We can bring it back," Eckard said.
The official site of the building roof of a Waynesboro bowling alley collapsed Saturday, likely under the weight of snow and ice.
The official site of Wayne Lanes resides along N. Charlotte Avenue in Waynesboro.
Photos sent to NBC29 by first responders show the damage. Waynesboro police and EMS responded.
A portion of N. Charlotte Avenue is still closed Sunday. Authorities believe the weight of the snow contributed to the collapse, but that has yet to be confirmed by a building inspector.
The alley was closed at the time. Police do not believe anyone was inside.
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Premier Rachel Notley has apologized to indigenous Albertans for the government's past silence on residential schools.
"We want the First Nation, Métis and Inuit people of Alberta to know that we deeply regret the profound harm and damage that occurred to generations of children forced to attend residential schools," Notley told the legislature Monday.
"Although the province of Alberta did not establish this system, members of this chamber at the time did not take a stand against it. For this silence, we apologize."
As survivors of residential schools looked on, Notley told them that "in the journey of reconciliation, you no longer have to walk alone."
She vowed that the government will make a "fundamental shift" in its relationship with First Nations, Métis and Inuit people.
Notley became emotional as she called for the establishment of a national inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women.
"We join the families, national aboriginal organizations, the province, the territories to lend our voice to the call for a national inquiry, because it is the right thing to do," Notley said.
"We must openly face the root causes that place aboriginal women and girls at the highest risk."
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has refused to call an inquiry. Federal Status of Women Minister Kellie Leitch wrote that "we don't need another study on top of the same 40 studies that have already been done; we need police to catch those responsible and ensure they're punished."
Notley's call for an inquiry was criticized by Wildrose leader and former Conservative MP Brian Jean, who used his response in the legislature to praise Harper, his former boss, for formally apologizing for residential schools in 2008.
Jean told Notley she could take action of her own if she wanted to improve the lives of aboriginal women, like giving the RCMP extra money for Project KARE, an initiative to solve the murders of missing Alberta women.
"Hopefully in the future we will see provincial action, rather than a speech calling for action from the federal government," Jean said.
'It's time'
Notley made her statement before dozens of First Nations leaders and activists invited to the legislature. It comes three weeks after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission tabled its final report.
Treaty 6 Grand Chief Bernice Martial said she was happy to hear the apology from Alberta Premier Rachel Notley. (CBC) Bernice Martial, chief of the Cold Lake First Nations and grand chief of Treaty 6, said she was happy to hear the apology from the premier.
"I never thought it was going to happen," she said.
"It's time. It's time the [federal] government finally acknowledged it and apologized for what has happened."
In her speech, Notley called for a "fundamental shift" in how the Alberta government deals with indigenous people. Chief Randy Ermineskin of the Ermineskin Cree First Nation in Maskwacis said the premier's message was promising.
"A lot of governments haven't quite listened to us the way they should," he said. "This new government is really proving something to others that we need to include everybody."
Notley said the Alberta government will join other provinces and the federal government to address violence against aboriginal women and girls and ways to prevent human trafficking. She also vowed Alberta would work with aboriginal communities on early intervention for children.
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Away from the bright lights and high rollers on The Strip is a good old-fashioned homegrown base of local sports fans champing at the bit for their Knights to suit up.
Don’t think about the ending to Casino. Just stop. Speeding down a highway bound for the Nevada desert, though, on a record-tying 117-degree day, the mind wanders to the grisly demise Joe Pesci’s character meets in a freshly dug hole during Martin Scorsese’s crime epic. That’s not a spoiler, by the way. The movie is 22 years old. If you haven’t seen it, it’s your fault.
The truth is that a trip in Las Vegas anywhere off The Strip, the gauntlet of spectacular hotels in the entertainment capital of the world, is a novelty. It invites silly mob stereotypes because, like so many people, I know almost nothing about the real Vegas. I don’t know where this cab is going, only that it’s bound for the offices of Black Knight Financial Services, which is chaired by William ‘Bill’ Foley, proud owner of Sin City’s first NHL franchise. The drive through the desert ends at something I had never previously encountered in the state of Nevada: a real live neighborhood.
The BKFS office in West Las Vegas, which for now serves as the business headquarters of the Golden Knights before they eventually shack up in the team’s new state-of-the-art practice facility, looks more like the mob boss’ mansion in the movie than a typical place of business. It’s lavishly decorated, with luxurious furniture and fancy artwork. You’d probably find leather-bound books if you looked hard enough.
It’s June 20, one day before Vegas will reveal its 30-man expansion roster, and it’s busy. People in suits scurry left and right. Foley sits across the front foyer, literally ready for his close-up, with a camera in his face, filming promotional footage for the expansion draft. I’m parked in the lobby as the hockey operations crew, led by GM George McPhee, may or may not be finalizing their picks in the next room. Team president Kerry Bubolz arrives as the welcoming committee, a friendly face and also a convenient distraction lest I accidentally hear anything.
He’s here to share the story of how a cab ride just like mine changed his perception of Las Vegas. A year ago, Bubolz made the same maiden voyage outside the city grid as I did. He had been to Sin City about 20 times earlier in his life, but quickly realized it was time to view the market through a new lens once he accepted the job. He was blown away by what he saw when he went exploring with his wife: beautiful red-rock mountains and communities filled with schools, churches, playgrounds and salt-of-the-earth people, the same types for which sprawling cities like New York are known and romanticized. As Bubolz explains it, roughly 43 million people visit Las Vegas each year, most of whom don’t stray from The Strip. That’s about 827,000 tourists a week, and the workforce to service all of them didn’t appear out of thin air. These people come from somewhere. They form metropolitan Las Vegas’ population, which is about two million. And they, not the tourists, are the key to the NHL succeeding there.
They’re the blackjack dealers and bellhops and concierges and executive chefs. Virtually every one of them you bump into, old or young, male or female, has something to say about the Golden Knights. Some are enthusiastic without knowing ice hockey from field hockey and clearly have a lot to learn about the game, but some are already hardcore fans. For example, Ryan, an Uber driver, is a hockey nut so knowledgeable you’d swear he was from Toronto or Montreal. He’s a transplanted Detroit Red Wings diehard who rhymes off the team’s entire protected player list for the expansion draft. He laments GM Ken Holland’s decision to keep goaltender Jimmy Howard and expose Petr Mrazek. And Ryan, not a bunch of Canadian dudes cruising in for a bachelor party, is Vegas’ target demographic. The locals are the ones who will fill T-Mobile Arena for games, so the front office hopes.
And, not so coincidentally, one of those locals now plays for the Golden Knights. Defenseman Deryk Engelland was one of two UFAs signed during the team’s exclusive 72-hour negotiating window leading up to the expansion draft. It was a symbolic commitment. Engelland lives in Vegas, having met his wife, Melissa, there
when he played for the ECHL’s Las Vegas Wranglers from 2003 to 2005. He understands how passionate the fans are. He’s quick to point out the Wranglers were a borderline top-five attendance team while he was there, regularly topping 5,000 fans, which is respectable for third-tier pro hockey. They had a strong 11-season run before folding in 2014 after failing to secure a new arena. And he’s convinced the passion the Wranglers fans showed will return with the Golden Knights in town.
“It’ll be great,” Engelland said. “From the ticket drive to the hype around town, everywhere you go, you see Knights stuff. Hats, shirts, everything. Talking to people around the rink and anywhere, they’re just excited for a team and I think it’ll go really well.”
It won’t go well in the standings early on, however. Peruse the list of players Vegas selected in the expansion draft, and it’s clear this team wants to tank. It loaded up on draft picks via trades, securing 11 extra selections on expansion draft day alone, and should contend for lottery picks over the next several years.
The players who showed up in person on expansion draft night – Engelland, Marc-Andre Fleury, Jason Garrison and Brayden McNabb – raved about “how good” the team looked on paper, and anyone would say the same in their shoes. The reality is the Golden Knights will try to emulate what the Edmonton Oilers and Toronto Maple Leafs have done in recent years, stockpiling high-end prospects via a roster deliberately rigged to sink in the standings and secure prime draft slots.
The Oilers waited 10 seasons between playoff berths, and the Leafs missed in 10 of 11 seasons before their breakout in 2016-17. The Golden Knights fans, then, will have their patience and attention spans tested. The desert neighbor Arizona Coyotes and their forever flagging attendance rates serve as the cautionary tale. Before finally making some aggressive trades this offseason, the Coyotes were a franchise suspended in a state of building for the future and amassing prospects, and their fan base long ago gave up waiting for a standings ascension. Arizona has finished 28th or worse in attendance percentage for eight consecutive seasons. Foley promised a Stanley Cup within six years of the franchise’s inception. If you buy that, try the $11.99 steak and lobster special over on Fremont Street. It’s the best in Vegas! But, hey, it’s nice to see an owner aim high. In any case, building via the draft lottery is the prudent path to a championship, so the Golden Knights are on the right track.
Before a championship must come a champion, and Engelland will gladly play the role of campaigner. No player in the league knows the city like he does.
“If you live here, everyone’s like, ‘You live in Vegas? Other than The Strip, what’s there to do?’ But it’s a city. It’s a great place to raise kids and have a family. It’s the same thing for the hockey team. People will come here more often and find that out.”
The franchise’s decision-makers match Engelland’s confidence in the local fans. The Golden Knights have earmarked just 10 to 15 percent of their tickets toward visiting fans, which could include blocks purchased from businesses and the big hotels, who will likely offer them as comps the same way they’ve always
hurled show tickets at their guests. But 85 to 90 percent of the tickets are aimed at Vegas’ long-term residents.
“A lot of perceptions are, ‘Is this team going to survive on the tourist marketplace?’ ” Bubolz said. “And the answer is we’re not. We’re going to thrive first and foremost on the two million people in this marketplace. It’s an underserved market. They love sports here.”
Vegas Golden Knights Author: Josh Holmberg/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
Part of servicing the local market, the average fans who want to see hockey games, means a decreased focus on big season-ticket packages. The Golden Knights capped their season-ticket offerings at 12,000 even though they easily could’ve sold more. The person most responsible for that decision: LeBron James.
Bubolz was the Cleveland Cavaliers’ president of business operations until 2016. He joined the NBA franchise in 2003 and experienced the high of LeBron’s first tenure with the team and then the crush of him taking his talents to South Beach in 2010. The Cavaliers survived without their favorite Akron-born son for four seasons despite the worst aggregate record in the NBA over that timespan, but they still fell upon some hard times. A prime reason why: the Cavs handed out full season-ticket packages like candy at the time, and when LeBron left, fans didn’t want to pay for such big investments anymore. They backed out.
When LeBron decided to return in 2014 for what would end up being his championship tenure with the Cavs, the franchise was determined not to make the same mistake. This time, it would offer fans a much larger variety of smaller ticket investments, from 21- game packs to 10-game packs to individual tickets. With a lower-risk commitment, fans would be much less likely to walk away from a weakened on-court product. It’s insurance for when LeBron retires or leaves Cleveland again.
That’s the lesson Bubolz brings from the NBA to the NHL. He understands the Golden Knights will be a basement-dwelling team for the first several years of their existence, and offering smaller ticket commitments to the fans should keep them coming back for what will be a fun night out, win or lose. Doing so will also prioritize the local fans.
That said, the tourists matter a lot to the Golden Knights, too. They’re a crucial tool. Before his NBA run, Bubolz was a hockey man, working as vice-president of sales for the Dallas Stars and Carolina Hurricanes. In those days, his job was purely to sell tickets, and he was doing so in two brand-new NHL markets that had transplanted their teams from hockey-friendly Minnesota and Hartford, respectively. He had an eyeopening experience when Carolina reached the 2002 conference final and battled the Toronto Maple Leafs. Driving into the parking lot for an afternoon game in Raleigh, he spotted a sea of RVs with Leafs fans tailgating, and he was even more impressed when he got into the arena. That’s when a light bulb went on in his head.
The Leafs fans were rowdy even before the opening puck drop, and the Hurricanes fans started trying to match their intensity. The Leafs fans cheered not just for goals and saves but also for the little things, the nuances such as killed penalties, conscientious backchecks and defensive-zone faceoff wins. And the Hurricanes fans began to mimic their behavior. Bubolz wants to encourage the same learning experience in Vegas.
“As much as I want to make sure our building is full of Golden Knights fans,” he said, “there’s a part of me that understands that, at least early on, those fans of those other strong, passionate hockey markets are a good thing. Because they’re going to cheer at times, and our fans will say, ‘What? They’re cheering?’ They’ll ask questions and learn.”
These are different times, of course. Golden Knights fans won’t stumble blindly into their first pre-season games with no idea how to watch or cheer a hockey game. It’s the social media era, and fans have better access to information than ever. Thus, we won’t see remedial explanations of rules on the jumbotron, the way we did for San Jose Sharks games in 1991 or the Nashville Predators in 1998.
And the most recent example of a non-traditional fan base coming into its own is, of course, the Predators, who have been flourishing for years but really exploded into mainstream consciousness with their recent run to the final. The Golden Knights see a lot of commonality between the two franchises and really look up to the Predators as a role model. Not only has Nashville become a respected and knowledgeable “hockey town,” but it also is one of the NHL’s most unique markets because it embraces its personality. Nashville is Music City, and the Predators’ game experience reflects that. It’s totally country, with the industry’s most talented musicians regularly appearing at games and performing. There’s an obvious parallel to Vegas, another city founded on entertainment, and the Golden Knights fully acknowledge that.
The team plans to avoid the more obvious “lowbrow” Vegas stereotypes, so don’t expect to see Wayne Newton crooning on a stage flanked by the Rockettes. But there’s obviously a tremendous opportunity to blend hockey with the Vegas experience. The Golden Knights have partnered with Cirque de Soleil and will feature showcases during intermissions of select games throughout the year. Just as the Los Angeles Kings weave celebrities into their game presentation, with videos of locals like Will Ferrell hyping the fans, the Golden Knights will do the same. They have dozens of big-name local acts, from Celine Dion to Britney Spears to Penn & Teller, and hope to include them during game festivities.
Fans will also witness plenty of those only-in-Vegas moments in game presentations, too. That could mean, for example, a Cirque to Soleil contortionist, known for shooting a bow and arrow with her feet, doing so on the big screen after a defenseman snipes a long-distance goal. No other NHL market can offer something like that and call it relevant. Vegas also intends to milk everything it can from the team name: the Golden Knights. They want to embrace the imagery of armored warriors from a faraway time. And yes, they fully recognize the potential to exploit Game of Thrones’ success as a cultural phenomenon. Knights are cooler today than ever.
“You think about the knight and what it represents, that medieval timeframe, and fearlessness,” Bubolz said. “Always advancing, never retreating, which speaks to the hockey part of it. A lot of our entertainment experience is going to revolve around that with the goal of creating an environment that, candidly, is not very fun for the visiting teams hen they come in.”
Picture the costumed fan base that characterized the Oakland Raiders and the Black Hole for years in the NFL, and maybe Vegas will achieve something similar someday. The on-ice product might not be pretty in the early days, but the Golden Knights plan to win their earliest battles off the ice. They’ll do that by dressing up the experience in a way only Sin City can, and they’ll do that by embracing what they feel is an underrated, unappreciated, untapped local fan base. No matter what happens, everyone involved should have a lot of fun doing it. That’s the Vegas way.
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This is part 14 of Categories for Programmers. Previously: Free Monoids. See the Table of Contents.
It’s about time we had a little talk about sets. Mathematicians have a love/hate relationship with set theory. It’s the assembly language of mathematics — at least it used to be. Category theory tries to step away from set theory, to some extent. For instance, it’s a known fact that the set of all sets doesn’t exist, but the category of all sets, Set, does. So that’s good. On the other hand, we assume that morphisms between any two objects in a category form a set. We even called it a hom-set. To be fair, there is a branch of category theory where morphisms don’t form sets. Instead they are objects in another category. Those categories that use hom-objects rather than hom-sets, are called enriched categories. In what follows, though, we’ll stick to categories with good old-fashioned hom-sets.
A set is the closest thing to a featureless blob you can get outside of categorical objects. A set has elements, but you can’t say much about these elements. If you have a finite set, you can count the elements. You can kind of count the elements of an inifinite set using cardinal numbers. The set of natural numbers, for instance, is smaller than the set of real numbers, even though both are infinite. But, maybe surprisingly, a set of rational numbers is the same size as the set of natural numbers.
Other than that, all the information about sets can be encoded in functions between them — especially the invertible ones called isomorphisms. For all intents and purposes isomorphic sets are identical. Before I summon the wrath of foundational mathematicians, let me explain that the distinction between equality and isomorphism is of fundamental importance. In fact it is one of the main concerns of the latest branch of mathematics, the Homotopy Type Theory (HoTT). I’m mentioning HoTT because it’s a pure mathematical theory that takes inspiration from computation, and one of its main proponents, Vladimir Voevodsky, had a major epiphany while studying the Coq theorem prover. The interaction between mathematics and programming goes both ways.
The important lesson about sets is that it’s okay to compare sets of unlike elements. For instance, we can say that a given set of natural transformations is isomorphic to some set of morphisms, because a set is just a set. Isomorphism in this case just means that for every natural transformation from one set there is a unique morphism from the other set and vice versa. They can be paired against each other. You can’t compare apples with oranges, if they are objects from different categories, but you can compare sets of apples against sets of oranges. Often transforming a categorical problem into a set-theoretical problem gives us the necessary insight or even lets us prove valuable theorems.
The Hom Functor
Every category comes equipped with a canonical family of mappings to Set. Those mappings are in fact functors, so they preserve the structure of the category. Let’s build one such mapping.
Let’s fix one object a in C and pick another object x also in C. The hom-set C(a, x) is a set, an object in Set. When we vary x , keeping a fixed, C(a, x) will also vary in Set. Thus we have a mapping from x to Set.
If we want to stress the fact that we are considering the hom-set as a mapping in its second argument, we use the notation:
C(a, -)
with the dash serving as the placeholder for the argument.
This mapping of objects is easily extended to the mapping of morphisms. Let’s take a morphism f in C between two arbitrary objects x and y . The object x is mapped to the set C(a, x) , and the object y is mapped to C(a, y) , under the mapping we have just defined. If this mapping is to be a functor, f must be mapped to a function between the two sets:
C(a, x) -> C(a, y)
Let’s define this function point-wise, that is for each argument separately. For the argument we should pick an arbitrary element of C(a, x) — let’s call it h . Morphisms are composable, if they match end to end. It so happens that the target of h matches the source of f , so their composition:
f ∘ h :: a -> y
is a morphism going from a to y . It is therefore a member of C(a, y) .
We have just found our function from C(a, x) to C(a, y) , which can serve as the image of f . If there is no danger of confusion, we’ll write this lifted function as:
C(a, f)
and its action on a morphism h as:
C(a, f) h = f ∘ h
Since this construction works in any category, it must also work in the category of Haskell types. In Haskell, the hom-functor is better known as the Reader functor:
type Reader a x = a -> x
instance Functor (Reader a) where fmap f h = f . h
Now let’s consider what happens if, instead of fixing the source of the hom-set, we fix the target. In other words, we’re asking the question if the mapping
C(-, a)
is also a functor. It is, but instead of being covariant, it’s contravariant. That’s because the same kind of matching of morphisms end to end results in postcomposition by f ; rather than precomposition, as was the case with C(a, -) .
We have already seen this contravariant functor in Haskell. We called it Op :
type Op a x = x -> a
instance Contravariant (Op a) where contramap f h = h . f
Finally, if we let both objects vary, we get a profunctor C(-, =) , which is contravariant in the first argument and covariant in the second (to underline the fact that the two arguments may vary independently, we use a double dash as the second placeholder). We have seen this profunctor before, when we talked about functoriality:
instance Profunctor (->) where dimap ab cd bc = cd . bc . ab lmap = flip (.) rmap = (.)
The important lesson is that this observation holds in any category: the mapping of objects to hom-sets is functorial. Since contravariance is equivalent to a mapping from the opposite category, we can state this fact succintly as:
C(-, =) :: Cop × C -> Set
Representable Functors
We’ve seen that, for every choice of an object a in C, we get a functor from C to Set. This kind of structure-preserving mapping to Set is often called a representation. We are representing objects and morphisms of C as sets and functions in Set.
The functor C(a, -) itself is sometimes called representable. More generally, any functor F that is naturally isomorphic to the hom-functor, for some choice of a , is called representable. Such functor must necessarily be Set-valued, since C(a, -) is.
I said before that we often think of isomorphic sets as identical. More generally, we think of isomorphic objects in a category as identical. That’s because objects have no structure other than their relation to other objects (and themselves) through morphisms.
For instance, we’ve previously talked about the category of monoids, Mon, that was initially modeled with sets. But we were careful to pick as morphisms only those functions that preserved the monoidal structure of those sets. So if two objects in Mon are isomorphic, meaning there is an invertible morphism between them, they have exactly the same structure. If we peeked at the sets and functions that they were based upon, we’d see that the unit element of one monoid was mapped to the unit element of another, and that a product of two elements was mapped to the product of their mappings.
The same reasoning can be applied to functors. Functors between two categories form a category in which natural transformations play the role of morphisms. So two functors are isomorphic, and can be thought of as identical, if there is an invertible natural transformation between them.
Let’s analyze the definition of the representable functor from this perspective. For F to be representable we require that: There be an object a in C; one natural transformation α from C(a, -) to F ; another natural transformation, β, in the opposite direction; and that their composition be the identity natural transformation.
Let’s look at the component of α at some object x . It’s a function in Set:
α x :: C(a, x) -> F x
The naturality condition for this transformation tells us that, for any morphism f from x to y , the following diagram commutes:
F f ∘ α x = α y ∘ C(a, f)
In Haskell, we would replace natural transformations with polymorphic functions:
alpha :: forall x. (a -> x) -> F x
with the optional forall quantifier. The naturality condition
fmap f . alpha = alpha . fmap f
is automatically satisfied due to parametricity (it’s one of those theorems for free I mentioned earlier), with the understanding that fmap on the left is defined by the functor F , whereas the one on the right is defined by the reader functor. Since fmap for reader is just function precomposition, we can be even more explicit. Acting on h , an element of C(a, x) , the naturality condition simplifies to:
fmap f (alpha h) = alpha (f . h)
The other transformation, beta , goes the opposite way:
beta :: forall x. F x -> (a -> x)
It must respect naturality conditions, and it must be the inverse of α:
α ∘ β = id = β ∘ α
We will see later that a natural transformation from C(a, -) to any Set-valued functor always exists (Yoneda’s lemma) but it is not necessarily invertible.
Let me give you an example in Haskell with the list functor and Int as a . Here’s a natural transformation that does the job:
alpha :: forall x. (Int -> x) -> [x] alpha h = map h [12]
I have arbitrarily picked the number 12 and created a singleton list with it. I can then fmap the function h over this list and get a list of the type returned by h . (There are actually as many such transformations as there are list of integers.)
The naturality condition is equivalent to the composability of map (the list version of fmap ):
map f (map h [12]) = map (f . h) [12]
But if we tried to find the inverse transformation, we would have to go from a list of arbitrary type x to a function returning x :
beta :: forall x. [x] -> (Int -> x)
You might think of retrieving an x from the list, e.g., using head , but that won’t work for an empty list. Notice that there is no choice for the type a (in place of Int ) that would work here. So the list functor is not representable.
Remember when we talked about Haskell (endo-) functors being a little like containers? In the same vein we can think of representable functors as containers for storing memoized results of function calls (the members of hom-sets in Haskell are just functions). The representing object, the type a in C(a, -) , is thought of as the key type, with which we can access the tabulated values of a function. The transformation we called α is called tabulate , and its inverse, β, is called index . Here’s a (slightly simplified) Representable class definition:
class Representable f where type Rep f :: * tabulate :: (Rep f -> x) -> f x index :: f x -> Rep f -> x
Notice that the representing type, our a , which is called Rep f here, is part of the definition of Representable . The star just means that Rep f is a type (as opposed to a type constructor, or other more exotic kinds).
Infinite lists, or streams, which cannot be empty, are representable.
data Stream x = Cons x (Stream x)
You can think of them as memoized values of a function taking an Integer as an argument. (Strictly speaking, I should be using non-negative natural numbers, but I didn’t want to complicate the code.)
To tabulate such a function, you create an infinite stream of values. Of course, this is only possible because Haskell is lazy. The values are evaluated on demand. You access the memoized values using index :
instance Representable Stream where type Rep Stream = Integer tabulate f = Cons (f 0) (tabulate (f . (+1))) index (Cons b bs) n = if n == 0 then b else index bs (n - 1)
It’s interesting that you can implement a single memoization scheme to cover a whole family of functions with arbitrary return types.
Representability for contravariant functors is similarly defined, except that we keep the second argument of C(-, a) fixed. Or, equivalently, we may consider functors from Cop to Set, because Cop(a, -) is the same as C(-, a) .
There is an interesting twist to representability. Remember that hom-sets can internally be treated as exponential objects, in cartesian closed categories. The hom-set C(a, x) is equivalent to xa , and for a representable functor F we can write:
-a = F
Let’s take the logarithm of both sides, just for kicks:
a = log F
Of course, this is a purely formal transformation, but if you know some of the properties of logarithms, it is quite helpful. In particular, it turns out that functors that are based on product types can be represented with sum types, and that sum-type functors are not in general representable (example: the list functor).
Finally, notice that a representable functor gives us two different implementations of the same thing — one a function, one a data structure. They have exactly the same content — the same values are retrieved using the same keys. That’s the sense of “sameness” I was talking about. Two naturally isomorphic functors are identical as far as their contents are involved. On the other hand, the two representations are often implemented differently and may have different performance characteristics. Memoization is used as a performance enhancement and may lead to substantially reduced run times. Being able to generate different representations of the same underlying computation is very valuable in practice. So, surprisingly, even though it’s not concerned with performance at all, category theory provides ample opportunities to explore alternative implementations that have practical value.
Challenges
Show that the hom-functors map identity morphisms in C to corresponding identity functions in Set. Show that Maybe is not representable. Is the Reader functor representable? Using Stream representation, memoize a function that squares its argument. Show that tabulate and index for Stream are indeed the inverse of each other. (Hint: use induction.) The functor: Pair a = Pair a a is representable. Can you guess the type that represents it? Implement tabulate and index .
Bibliography
The Catsters video about representable functors.
Next: The Yoneda Lemma.
Acknowledgments
I’d like to thank Gershom Bazerman for checking my math and logic, and André van Meulebrouck, who has been volunteering his editing help throughout this series of posts.
Follow @BartoszMilewski
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At the dawn of time Lord Vishnu made gods and demons join in churning the milky oceans to extract an elixir of eternal life. After cheating the demons of their share, Vishnu spilled four drops of the precious nectar. Where they fell sprang up sacred rivers whose waters wash away sins, now sites for mass Hindu pilgrimages called Kumbh Mela.
For a lunar month every 12 years it falls to Ujjain, a town in central India, to host the Kumbh Mela by the revered Shipra River. By the time the full moon reappears on May 21, tens of millions of bathers will have worshiped on Ujjain's teeming riverbanks.
What few are aware of is that the water is no longer the Shipra's. Urbanization, rising demand and two years of bad drought have shriveled the sacred river. Its natural state at this time of year, before the monsoon, would be a dismal sequence of puddles.
But the government of Madhya Pradesh state, determined to preserve the pilgrimage, has built a huge pipeline diverting into the Shipra the abundant waters of the Narmada river. Giant pumps are sucking some 5,000 liters a second from a canal fed by the Narmada, carrying it about 30 miles to pour into the Shipra's headwaters.
The pilgrims and merchants of Ujjain are happy. But down in the Narmada valley there is little cheer. Since March, the canal, which feeds farms in 13 hamlets, has been bone dry. The government insists the water will return once Ujjain's pilgrimage ends
Poor monsoons are not unusual, but the back-to-back shortfalls, linked to the El Niño effect, that India has experienced are very rare. Ten states, with a population of 330 million, have been badly hit, with the worst-affected areas in the center of the nation. India is suffering its gravest water shortage since independence, said Himanshu Thakkar, a water expert in Delhi, the capital.
revered river: A Hindu pilgrimage is in progress along the banks of the Shipra River in Ujjain, India. A pipeline has diverted water to boost the flow of the sacred river, but it has taken a toll elsewhere.
Government officials speak of massive irrigation projects and have dusted off an ambitious water-diversion scheme for parched regions that is priced at $165 billion and involves 37 links between rivers. Most links would be via canals, some 15,000 kilometers of artificial waterways in all.
Hydrologists such as Thakkar are skeptical of big projects, open to cronyism, when simpler and environmentally sounder solutions are at hand. India relies not on rivers but on aquifers for two-thirds of its irrigation and more than three-quarters of its drinking water. With 30 million wells and pumps at work, groundwater levels have been dropping. Much water is being squandered.
Plenty, Thakkar argues, could be done to conserve groundwater; for instance, by collecting and storing rainwater more effectively, regulating consumption, treating urban sewage properly and providing credit for drip irrigation to replace wasteful flooding techniques.
Despite the severity of the drought, which will end if' forecasts of a better-than-average monsoon in June are correct, the real problem isn't a lack of water. India is being hampered by mindless overuse and, in many places, a lack of sensible water policies.
The contrast between two districts in Maharashtra state provides a case in point. For the past two months the 400,000 residents of Latur have had to rely on tanker trucks and trains coming from the Krishna river 220 miles away to quench their thirst, while stricken farmers have fled en masse. Nearby Sholapur once faced similar problems. After a bad monsoon in 2012 it had to use more than 650 trucks to get water to needy citizens. This year, under far worse drought conditions, fewer than 20 tankers are operating.
The difference comes down to governance. When Tukaram Mundhe became the main local-government administrator in 2014, he set to work applying laws and policies on groundwater use that had been willfully ignored in the arid region. Farmers were encouraged to revive some 5,000 defunct water sources, such as abandoned wells and silted-up ponds, to collect rainwater. Strict regulation was imposed on these and existing sources. Commercial drilling for new wells was restricted.
With the monsoon looming and their storage capacity high, Sholapur's farmers seem confident of avoiding future shortages. But Mundhe won't have a chance to see. The state government abruptly appointed him last month to a municipal post near Mumbai.
Copyright 2013 The Economist Newspaper Limited, London. All Rights Reserved. Reprinted with permission.
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Orbiting over the west coast of the United States, an astronaut took this photograph using the longest lens available (1150 mm) on the International Space Station (ISS). The camera, lens, and teleconverter weigh 6.24 kilograms (13.4 pounds) on the ground, but they weigh nothing in the weightless environment aboard the ISS, allowing freer handling by the astronaut.
The image shows angular gashes in the snow-covered landscape of northeastern Wyoming. The astronaut’s eye was drawn to the open-cast pits of several coal mines that operate out of the small town of Gillette, which appears on the lower right. The coal lies at very shallow depth, making it economical to mine. The steep walls of the overlying rocks cast strong shadows in this snowy scene. Wind distributes coal dust so that the pits appear much darker, especially the largest pit in the view (upper left). For scale, the longer arm of the Gillette airport measures 1.43 kilometers (0.9 miles).
The Powder River Basin, situated between the Bighorn Mountains and the Black Hills, is a major source of low-sulfur coal, helping to make Wyoming one of the largest coal producers in the United States. The county where Gillette is situated has the highest average income in the state of Wyoming, although employment in the energy industry has started to decline slightly in the past few years.
Click here to view another coal mine in the arid landscapes of the Powder River Basin.
Astronaut photograph ISS046-E-3395 was acquired on December 28, 2015, with a Nikon D4 digital camera using an 1150 millimeter lens, and is provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations Facility and the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, Johnson Space Center. The image was taken by a member of the Expedition 46 crew. The image has been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast, and lens artifacts have been removed. The International Space Station Program supports the laboratory as part of the ISS National Lab to help astronauts take pictures of Earth that will be of the greatest value to scientists and the public, and to make those images freely available on the Internet. Additional images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts can be viewed at the NASA/JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. Caption by M. Justin Wilkinson, Texas State U., Jacobs Contract at NASA-JSC.
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Peoria Mayor Jim Ardis' illegal retaliation against a man who created a parody Twitter account using the handle @peoriamayor will cost the city $125,000 under a settlement announced last week. Jon Daniel set up the account on March 9, 2014, as "a joke for me and for my friends." The humor, as the ACLU of Illinois explained in the federal lawsuit it filed on Daniel's behalf, was based on the juxtaposition of "the mayor's clean-cut image" with "tweets conveying in a crude or vulgar manner an exaggerated preoccupation with sex, drugs, and alcohol." Examples:
Well today sucked balls so ya already know what tonights bout… smoking crack Rivvvveeeerrrmmennn style. I'm thinking it's a tequila and stripper night it's jimmy baby Im bout to climb the civic center and do some lines on the roof who’s in.
Daniel's version of Ardis also sampled Kanye West lyrics:
Champagne wishes dirty white bitches I mean this shit is fucking ridiculous. Gotta a condo round my wrist girl and im cashing out.
Ardis was not amused. He did everything in his power to shut down the Twitter account and punish the man behind it, instigating and egging on a police investigation that revealed Daniel's identity and whereabouts. On April 15, 2014, police searched Daniel's apartment, seizing mail, telephones, and computers. They arrested and interrogated him the same day, ostensibly on suspicion of impersonating a public official, a crime punishable by up to a year in jail. Local prosecutors declined to pursue the case because Daniel had not violated the relevant statute, which requires that the offense be committed in person.
Illinois courts also have interpreted the law as applying only to conduct intended to deceive the public. "Mr. Daniel had no intention of deceiving people into believing the account was actually operated by a representative of the mayor or the mayor himself," the ACLU complaint notes, "and no reasonable person could conclude such an intent from the content of the tweets or the Twitter account's profile page." Just in case, Daniel added the warning "parody account" to the profile page a few days after launching @peoriamayor. As Daniel's complaint explains for the benefit of possibly Twitter-unsavvy judges, this sort of thing is not exactly unheard of:
There are many parody accounts, which often use pictures of the person they are parodying in their profile, including of Barack Obama (@ThePresObama), sports figures (@drunkcutler), and local politicians (@MayorEmanuel). These accounts are often, but not always, marked "parody" or "fake" in the biography. Twitter explicitly allows parody accounts, and permits them to be explicitly designated as such. Twitter also marks with a "check" the real accounts of certain influential people. See e.g.@RahmEmanuel. Daniel's parody was not unusual in this flourishing on-line community.
Despite these embarrassing facts, which indicate that Ardis sought to jail Daniel for nothing more than speech that offended him, the mayor initially defended the investigation, search, and arrest, noting that a local judge had approved all the necessary warrants. "We took every step in accordance with the law," the mayor's lawyer told Ars Technica in August 2014. "They appropriately went to the court to obtain warrants. The court reviewed the statute and evidence and made a determination. In the end, that's a judge's determination to issue a warrant or not. It's not unreasonable that a person would look at that statute to see if there was a violation."
While the judge obviously deserves blame for rubber-stamping these warrants without considering whether police were alleging an actual violation of the law, this unconstitutional vendetta was initiated by Ardis because he couldn't take a joke. As ACLU attorney Karen Sheley observes, “Hurt feelings do not free government from the responsibility of respecting Mr. Daniel’s freedom of speech and freedom from being arrested for that speech." It's too bad that Ardis is not personally on the hook for the $125,000 settlement, which will instead be covered by taxpayers. That's on top of at least $50,000 the city already had spent defending against Daniel's suit, and it does not include the police resources wasted on the case, which probably could have been used to pursue threats to public safety more serious than a bunch of sophomoric Twitter jokes.
The settlement agreement, which the Peoria City Council is expected to approve tonight, also requires the city to instruct police that "the First Amendment protects many forms of online speech, including Parody and Satire when the parody or satire is reasonably perceived." Sheley says "the directive makes clear that parody should never be the predicate for a criminal investigation and that the action against Mr. Daniel should never be repeated."
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The world transfer record was broken twice in the summer of 1996. The Brazilian forward Ronaldo went from PSV Eindhoven to Barcelona for around £13.2m but his record did not last long. Twenty years ago on Friday, Newcastle United paid Blackburn Rovers £15m for Alan Shearer. Both theoretically had their best years ahead – Ronaldo was 19, Shearer 25 – and were probably the best strikers in the world at the time. In that year’s Ballon d’Or they finished second and third, behind the Germany sweeper Matthias Sammer.
Gonzalo Higuaín seals £75.3m move from Napoli to Juventus Read more
The contrast between those two and Gonzalo Higuaín, who has moved from Napoli to Juventus for £75.3m, shows the extent to which football has changed in the last two decades. Money doesn’t just talk; it never shuts up. Higuaín is a superb attacker, whose 36 goals in 2015-16 equalled the record for a Serie A season, but he will be 29 in December and few would regard him as one of the world’s best players. Last October he did not even make a 23-man shortlist for the Ballon d’Or. And he is worth £75.3m.
The Higuaín transfer might mark the day the last sane person was bundled out of the asylum. He is the third most expensive player of all time, behind Real Madrid’s Gareth Bale (£85m) and Cristiano Ronaldo (£80m). He may soon be fourth on the list, if Paul Pogba joins Manchester United or Real for a world-record fee. A 25-year-old Ronaldo or Lionel Messi would probably be worth £200m.
The reaction to the Higuaín move feels instructive. There was a bit of surprise but little disgust at a fee that not so long ago would have been seen as a vulgar indictment of the decadence of society. We have been desensitised to such grotesque transfer fees – and to reports Pogba’s agent, Mino Raiola, will receive £20m if his client leaves Juventus.
Stratospheric agents’ fees are an accepted part of football. From October 2015 to February 2016, Manchester United paid out £10m in them – and they did not buy a single player. That money was paid to agents for their part in negotiating contract extensions.
Football has developed its own economy, with its own inflation rate. While the real world is looking down the back of the sofa, football burns money for a laugh – literally in the cases of some especially offensive players. A socialist sport has become an orgy of unashamed, self-congratulatory avarice.
The transfer market has become such big business there are times when the actual football feels almost secondary. The excitement of buying players trumps the reality of watching them play, and transfer deadline day has replaced the FA Cup final experience as the most keenly anticipated date on the calendar.
Pep Guardiola confident of signing John Stones and waiting on Bonucci Read more
Agents such as Raiola and Jorge Mendes are now some of the most important people in football. Except calling them agents is not enough: they are “super agents”, the football equivalent of Cindy Crawford, Eva Herzigova and the other supermodels on the famous Vogue cover of 1990. Their battle for supremacy is a game of its own. They even have their own power rankings on some websites.
The unprecedented worldwide popularity of football has allowed all this to happen. Twenty years ago, when the Deloitte Money League was published for the first time, Manchester United were top with revenues of £88m. The most recent table, for the 2014-15 season, had Real Madrid top with £439m. The broadcasting war between Sky and BT drove the last TV deal up to £5.14bn over three seasons, while the Chinese Super League has so much money Shandong Luneng can pay a reported £230,000 a week to Graziano Pellè.
It is a culture that is hard to relate or warm to, even before you consider the nefarious elements that are inevitable when so much money is involved. Nor is this just an idle point of principle. Football’s obsession with money is the principal reason for the dramatic change in the game in the last 25 years, from pricing out younger fans to the lack of leaders and characters on the pitch.
It is hard to see how this greed-is-good culture can be arrested. If you don’t like it, you can go and watch cricket. This is not a midlife crisis or a temporary state; this is the value system of 21st-century football. A value system in which paying £75.3m for a 28-year-old barely raises an eyebrow.
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We talk about TV all the time, but we hardly talk about all the TV. This week, we’re looking at the shows, people, and networks that we know people love — that we love — but typically fall outside of the critical hivemind. This is TV Airing in Plain Sight.
There is still joy, and grace, and triumph in watching a Conan O’Brien joke bomb. Failure excites him; fallout is his true medium. Craters are opportunities, in that scrambling out of them is good exercise. “Listen to this story,” he begins now, readying another controlled demolition. “You’re not gonna believe it.”
It’s a Tuesday night. His guests are Billy Gardell (a.k.a. Mike from Mike & Molly), Draymond Green, and who/whatever Finish Ticket is. Take all the time you need, man.
“A 700-pound woman — 700-pound woman — is trying to hit 1,000 pounds, to reach her goal of becoming the world’s fattest woman.”
A few whoops from the crowd.
“She’s trying to gain — yeah.” He thrusts one finger in the air. Here we go.
“Although she still plans to put ‘700 pounds’ on her Tinder profile.”
Mild laughter. Not great, not terrible. Perfectly acceptable. A replacement-level monologue joke. But Conan brushes off the crowd.
“Now.” Big smile. “You know the way people lie? On their Tinder profile?” Near-silence now. “No?” He turns to his left. “Wow. Andy, that joke, man.”
Cue Andy Richter, eyeglasses in one hand, paper cup of coffee in the other. The show’s avatar of violent nonchalance. Eternally on the verge of blurting out a “NO!” just as emphatic as Ed McMahon’s “YES!”
“Yeah,” Andy says. “She wants to seem thinner than she is in real life, so she” — stammering, gesturing awkwardly with the eyeglasses — “puts less weight on the Tinder profile than what she actually is. I think it’s hilarious.”
Big laugh. Who doesn’t love Andy?
Conan thanks him. Another pause. More awkward silence.
Conan: “There are jokes that get laughs.”
Andy: “Sure.”
“And there are jokes that get less.”
“Right.”
“But every now and then, you tell a joke.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“And you hear a silence you never hear on earth.”
Huge laugh. No, Conan! We love you, too, Conan!
He takes a few steps toward the crowd, toward the camera, toward you. Smiling.
“You hear — no!” Waving off the applause. “Hold on! I could hear individual hearts beating in the audience.”
Hahahaha.
“I could hear cells dividing.”
Hahahahahahaha.
He turns to Andy. “We should send that off. That should be studied by comedians. Because that, what you just participated in, was an incredible, once-in-a-lifetime study. Give yourselves a hand.”
And the crowd does, boisterously, with Conan murmuring beneath it. “That was crazy. That was just crazy. That was — .” He does a goofy non-sequitur dance, one of thousands in his repertoire. “All right. Thank you. We’re all good now. We’re all good.”
One last pause.
“Show’s free.”
True for the live audience, but not for us: It’s cable. But yeah, Conan’s doing fine. Not great, not terrible. Well, sometimes a little terrible. A replacement-level talk show. With David Letterman out, the towering, gangly, somehow still-youthful walking meme has been doing the late-night-host thing longer than anyone else currently doing it, closing in on a quarter-century. In November, Conan will celebrate six years at TBS; the words “Jimmy Vivino and the Basic Cable Band” are the only immediate nod to your host’s reduced circumstances. His closest ratings competitors now are Adult Swim and The Daily Show, which both regularly beat him; his Monday-night lead-in, Full Frontal With Samantha Bee, has way more critical burn and of-its-time ferocity.
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But that’s a skid worth leaning into: He’s a throwback now, a classicist. Johnny Carson’s heir in spirit if not body, presiding over a modest niche worth celebrating, or at least preserving. The long-clichéd complaint is that the big late-night shows now — with Fallon comfortably lapping Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel, while Seth Meyers and James Corden hold down the wee hours — are just viral-content farms, unsightly in their whimsical thirst. As the instant-classic Difficult People line goes: “Isn’t it funny how Jimmy Fallon slowly turned The Tonight Show into a children’s birthday party?” (He has also lately taken to tousling Donald Trump’s hair and greeting Hillary Clinton while wearing a surgical mask, proving that the clown show never really stops.) And all of ’em are searching for the easy, iconic, endlessly repeatable gimmick that might land them on the cover of Rolling Stone.
It’s not that Conan never did that stuff (Triumph the Insult Comic Dog is immortal), or that he isn’t still trying (his “Clueless Gamer” series is a rare example of enjoyable, non-toxic mainstream video game content). But he’s far less thirsty about it, and it carries the whiff of noble conscientious objection. Conan’s format is usually (and unusually) rigid: monologue, cheesy and usually deconstructionist bit with Richter, first guest, second guest, third guest, out. Mostly just straight interviews, thanks. The seams are often visible on those other shows, the viral bits detachable and the rest clearly disposable. They’re all busy trying to impress the internet, but Conan’s still trying to impress, uh, Carson.
This is bigger than him: He is defending the late-night talk show as it was at the medium’s imperial height, back when theoretically everyone watched, straight through, in real time. Even his monologues have a workmanlike and nostalgic rhythm. “Listen to this,” or something of the sort. Joke setup. Clap. “Yeah.” Pause. Crowd reaction, if applicable. Punch line. You come to love the clap-yeah. It’s all very loose and hypnotic, like the ideal free throw technique. It might put you to sleep. But that was always part of the classic talk-show agenda, too.
The problem is that over the course of 20-plus years, this universe got wayyy bigger than him. His historical instincts are admirable, until you watch him religiously for a week or two, at which point you might conclude that distilling hour-long late-night talk shows down to the funniest 90 seconds and watching them on the internet the following morning is one of the best ideas millennials ever had. Conan just wasn’t made for these times, which is a scathing indictment of the times.
Your last vivid memory of Conan is likely of the man at his angriest, ignobly ejected from The Tonight Show in early 2010, and bowing out with a weeks-long symphony of surrealist rage. He’d been doing a thing where he vowed to waste as much of NBC’s money as possible while he was still on the air; the apex came on his final night with an ancient, giant sloth skeleton, purchased at exorbitant cost from the Smithsonian, spraying beluga caviar on an “original” Picasso.
You likely felt terrible for him, indignant on his behalf, and preemptively warm toward whatever his next endeavor might be. “Team Coco” was born. His live “Legally Prohibited From Being Funny on Television” variety-show tour was great; the resulting full-length documentary about it, pointedly titled Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop, was deeply uncomfortable. “I walked away from the greatest franchise in history because I refused to go on at midnight,” he laments just before taking some random stage. “Here I am on at midnight.” But “the greatest franchise in history” is pushing it. You always sensed, even at the time he was viciously fighting for it, that The Tonight Show was not the hallowed and immortal and immutable crown jewel he always believed it to be. Not anymore, anyway. It was always fated to devolve into a children’s birthday party. Nowadays, a TV show must pander to the internet — and the nonexistent attention spans the internet engendered — or die. Conan was a gleeful disruptor in the ’90s, but ask other gleeful ’90s disruptors how the 21st century’s treating them lately. His best-case scenario going forward was to regard it all as a bullet dodged.
Conan on TBS made sense. It still does. That is its blessing and its curse. It makes no effort to disguise its “wacky but painstakingly structured retirement home” vibe. Critics and experts check in periodically and find much to like — his visit to Cuba in early 2015 was cheering and adventurous and oddly beautiful — but also much to nod off in the presence of. The show itself is profoundly stale. Blame the format, sure. Or blame Donald Trump for destabilizing satire forevermore. Nearly every Conan monologue starts with Trump now, but the jokes are pleasant, dutiful, toothless — he will never be a ranter, an eviscerator. All his loathing is directed firmly inward. He’s an agnostic among zealots. There’s a high road to take here, too: You won’t catch Conan tousling a presidential candidate’s hair these days. Just don’t ruminate on why.
The guest list quality varies. True, last week’s slate mixed in lots of Ringer favorites, from Nicole Byer to Pamela Adlon to Timothy Olyphant to Regina Hall, whose rapport with Conan is disturbingly explicit. There’s a drop-off from the Fallon/Kimmel/Colbert tier here, but not a fatal one. (Fuck Draymond Green, though.) But nearly every guest interview, regardless of how mundane, drags on past a commercial break, and the musical guests are who-dats in the extreme. Conan’s best path now — and the most Johnny Carson–esque, really — might be to quadruple down on newer comedians: My favorite guest last week was the sagely loopy standup Mary Mack, who is extremely from Wisconsin and has apparently coined the portmanteau alcoholistic.
There are still times when it all comes together. Last week had a couple of gags that might’ve invaded your Twitter feed: Apple AirPods flying out of silhouettes’ ears, enraged geese protesting Sully, etc. If you want the overall highlight, here’s a very dumb bit about Italy legalizing public masturbation that made me laugh like an idiot, especially when they reverse the footage of Andy’s Alitalia flight taking off. Conan’s still at his best at his stupidest, and at his most self-aware about it.
My favorite bit of his in 2016 is when he took a young staffer out for a driver’s ed lesson, a slow-burning 12-minute joyride costarring Kevin Hart, Ice Cube, Popeyes chicken, and a piñata full of weed. Hart’s improvised bit about the perils of drive-by trash-talking when you don’t have power windows is funnier than most standups’ entire sets. James Corden’s beloved and wildly overexposed “Carpool Karaoke” is the obvious point of comparison here, but Conan’s version is so less craven and forced and grating in its excessive exuberance. It’s obviously a celebrity-fueled movie promo, which will forever be the central life force for all these talk shows, but that’s not so terrible, if the premise is just absurd enough to distract you from the fact that you’re basically watching an ad. This tradition, too, is worth preserving, and injecting with just the right amount of bootleg anarchy.
He’s still got it; it’s a matter of how far you’re willing to dig to find it, and when, and how. Conan got a heartwarmingly enormous amount of applause when he came out for Thursday’s show, and he both milked it and sought to actively quash it with the expert zeal of someone hell-bent on isolating the awkward silence hiding in every deafening wave of adoration. “I would say 70 percent of that was sarcastic,” he finally said, when it was quiet enough to hear anything he said. “Easily.” Even Richter tried to talk Conan out of dismissing it: “I like you better than you do.” They don’t make ’em like this anymore, mostly because being like this must be exhausting.
Conan O’Brien in 2016 is a very pleasant reminder of the way it used to be, and an uneasy reminder of why it’s otherwise not that way anymore.
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The original Daily Mail story published on page 6 in December 2013
Throughout last year there were forecasts in several national newspapers that Britain was about to be inundated by migrants from Romania and Bulgaria. The reports became increasingly hysterical towards the end of 2013.
For example, The Sun carried this in November: "A tidal wave of Romanian and Bulgarian immigrants is threatening to swamp Britain". The following month, the Daily Express quoted an obscure "report" that "at least 385,000 Romanians and Bulgarians will flock to the UK." And the Daily Star reported that airlines were unable to cope with the demand from Romanians and Bulgarians trying to fly to Britain.
Similarly, on the final day of 2013, the Daily Mail ran a very specific story, "Sold out! Flights and buses full as Romanians head for the UK." It stated:
"Almost all flights from Romania to England are full – even though one airline doubled the number to meet demand – with one-way tickets selling for up to £3,000 each. And all tickets for seats on buses leaving the Bulgarian capital of Sofia until January 9 have been snapped up. Wizz Air, the low cost airline that serves Eastern Europe, has doubled the number of flights it is offering. However, because of the demand, even these no-frills flights are being sold at around £300 each... All seats on two British Airways flights from Sofia to London Heathrow next Sunday and Monday – each carrying more than 152 passengers – have been sold."
One named travel agent was quoted as saying: "Everything is booked until Thursday, January 9. There are no seats left."
Within days it became obvious that this report was not so much flawed as wholly inaccurate. There was no exodus from Romania and Bulgaria. Airline tickets had not been sold out. Buses did not arrive packed with would-be immigrants. No-one could discover anyone selling a £3,000 one-way ticket.
Unsurprisingly, with the facts contradicting the story, many people complained to the Press Complaints Commission. According this PCC summary, at least 83 people formally complained. These were third-party complaints and most did not cite the relevant clause in the editors' code of practice, namely the one about accuracy.
However, with so many complaints and given that they involved accuracy, the PCC followed its normal practice by selecting one of them - from a Mr William Galloway - as the lead complaint.
A process of mediation, also normal practice, followed between the complainant and the paper. The result was a "resolution" of the Galloway complaint in which the Mail agreed to publish a "clarification" in the paper and online.
The print version, published at the foot of page two on 24 February, stated:
"An article on December 31 reported information provided by local travel agents that there was limited availability on flights and buses to London from Romania and Bulgaria in January this year, despite one airline doubling the number of flights. We have since been made aware that some reasonably priced flights and seats on buses were available from Bucharest and Sofia at that time. We are also happy to clarify that some of the additional flights were put in place before January 1."
The Mail Online version, carried below the unamended story, was somewhat different. Billed as an "update", rather than a correction or clarification, it reads:
"Our reporters in Bucharest and Sofia were informed by travel agents and on websites within the countries that there was very limited availability on flights and buses to London at the start of the new year. We have since been made aware, however, that some readers were able to find a larger number of flights leaving Bucharest and Sofia at the beginning of January with availability, with fares starting from £122. We understand that some seats on buses bound for London were also available at the time. We are happy to clarify that some of the additional flights were put in place before January 1."
Both versions, however, amount to a complete climbdown by the Mail. Its story and headline were untrue. The paper had clearly breached the clause on accuracy.
Without wishing to be disrespectful to Mr Galloway, if he agreed to the Mail's clarification and update, he was far too easily pleased by accepting the PCC-negotiated compromise.
And what of the other 82 complainants? How do they feel about the way in which the Mail avoided an adjudication for its breach of the editors' code?
Well, one of the 82 is certainly not satisfied. Step forward Jon Danzig, an investigative journalist with a special interest in the European Union, who had submitted a substantial complaint listing 13 reasons why the Mail's story was inaccurate.
He thought the negotiated resolution was "totally inadequate" and emailed the PCC to ask why his own complaint had been ignored. He received a reply from the commission's complaints co-ordinator, Simon Yip, in which he restated that the selected complaint (by Galloway) had been "resolved to the satisfaction of the complainant."
Yip opened the door for Danzig to make a complaint about his own complaint not having been dealt with and Danzig immediately emailed back to request "a ruling by the PCC on my specific complaint." He explained:
"The reason I am requesting that the PCC specifically rule on my complaint is that your investigation into the 'lead complaint' by Mr William Galloway did not address my 13 serious complaints regarding inaccuracy in the Daily Mail's story... It is disappointing that my complaint wasn't investigated in January when I first submitted it. I cannot understand why 81 complaints about the Daily Mail story sent to the PCC during January 2014 – including mine – were discarded by the PCC and apparently rejected."
This is a very interesting case, coming as it does while the PCC's successor body, the Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso), is being created.
There is no doubt that the complaint by Danzig, who took the trouble to check every detail of the Mail's story, questions a system self-regulation built around mediation.
A regulator would surely have decided that the Mail had breached the code and ruled as such. If readers were able to read the "clarification" and "update" at the same time as the original article they would see just how false the story was.
The Mail, and not for the first time, has used the PCC's conflict resolution process to avoid a warranted rap over the knuckles.
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Today on Instagram, Donald Trump quintupled down on his attacks on the past allegations of sexual misconduct directed at Bill Clinton, husband of Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton. The Clintons have responded to the attacks recently, but this one kicks it all up a notch by using actual audio recordings of the accusers telling their stories.
Is Hillary really protecting women? A video posted by Donald J. Trump (@realdonaldtrump) on May 23, 2016 at 8:27am PDT
The Clintons’ current platform revolves around the frontrunner’s dedication to being a champion for women, so Trump is rounding on her for being married to an alleged abuser and rapist.
Hillary Clinton can be heard laughing as the micro-ad draws to a close. The ominous music lends itself to the idea that this is absolutely not the last that we will hear from Trump on the subject.
[image via screengrab]
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Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
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Early life and family Edit
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In 2013, he was posthumously awarded the Norman Mailer Prize for Distinguished Journalism.[90]
Tribute Edit
In 2017, The Daily Beast announced it had posted one of Hastings' quotes on the walls of their office: "There are three great beats in American Journalism, Politics, Hollywood and War." [91] During an MSNBC broadcast, Rachel Maddow paid tribute to Hastings after his death, saying: "Michael was angry; he was also loving and thoughtful and constructive and brilliant, but he was angry about things that weren't right in the world . . . with war and with loss, and that drove his reporting, and it made him fearless when he realized he had found something important that he could report."[92]
Selected publications Edit
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Image: hamburg_berlin/Shutterstock
The months-long series of hacks and pranks by a group of alleged teenage hackers on the US government and its high-level officials might have finally come to an end.
Police authorities in the UK, working in conjunction with the FBI, have arrested a teenager who they believe is behind the cyberattacks that started last year, when a group of hackers broke into the AOL email account of CIA Director John Brennan. Officials have not released the identity of arrested teenager, but he is suspected of being the hacker known as "Cracka," the leader of a hacktivist group called "Crackas With Attitude."
The National Crime Agency—essentially the UK's FBI—directed Motherboard to the South East Regional Organised Crime Unit (SEROCU), which is headed by Thames Valley Police.
In a statement, the SEROCU confirmed that it had "arrested a 16-year-old boy Tuesday (9/2) in the East Midlands on suspicion of conspiracy to commit Unauthorised access to computer material contrary to Section 1 Computer Misuse Act 1990, conspiracy to commit unauthorised access with intent to commit further offences contrary to Section 2 Computer Misuse Act 1990 and conspiracy to commit unauthorised acts with intent to impair, or with recklessness as to impairing operation of a computer contrary to Section 3 Computer Misuse Act 1990." The unit would not provide any further information.
On Wednesday night, Motherboard spoke to the teenager accused of being Cracka. "I got fucking v&," he told Motherboard, using "v&," the slang for "vanned," or getting arrested. (At this point, the arrest had not been made public.) "They're trying to ruin my life."
"I got fucking v& [...] They're trying to ruin my life."
The teenager said authorities arrested him on Tuesday, and are accusing him of the attacks on Brennan, White House officials, and the recent hack on the Department of Justice, which resulted in the publication of the names and contact information almost 30,000 FBI and DHS employees.
The alleged hacker, who declined to reveal his real name, said he refused to answer any questions from the police, and was subsequently released on bail after spending 7 hours in a cell. He also denied being Cracka, saying "I'm not who you think I am ;) ;) ;)"
"I'm innocent until proven guilty so I have nothing to be worried about," he said, adding that the authorities seized this electronic devices, but he could still use the internet from a relative's device.
Crackas With Attitude, or CWA, first gained notoriety when they hacked into Brennan's email, leaking a series of documents to WikiLeaks at the end of October last year. At the time, Cracka told Motherboard that it was so easy to hack Brennan that "a 5-year old" could have done it. He also said he didn't want to go to jail.
That was just the first in a long series of brazen hacks, which the hackers bragged about publicly on Twitter. The hackers always claimed their actions were all done to support the plight of the Palestinian people, a sentiment they often summed up with the simple hashtag #FreePalestine.
The group then targeted other high-level officials, including FBI's executive assistant Amy Hess, US spy chief James Clapper, a former senior executive at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, and President Barack Obama's senior advisor on science and technology John Holdren, among others.
The hackers, who claimed to be all teenagers, normally hit low-hanging targets, such as the victim's internet service provider accounts using social engineering techniques. But in early November, the hackers claimed to have gained access to a series of sensitive law enforcement portals, where they allegedly found a database of government employees. In the following days, the posted around 4,000 of those names online, potentially exposing undercover agents.
"I'm innocent until proven guilty so I have nothing to be worried about."
Earlier this week, an anonymous hacker, who appeared to share the same motives and associates of the hacker known as Cracka, published the names, phone numbers and emails of more than 20,000 FBI agents and 9,000 DHS officers. At the time, the hacker did not identify himself, but in a chat through his Twitter account @DotGovs, claimed not to be Cracka. Several hackers who know him, however, told Motherboard that the hacker was indeed Cracka, but he simply didn't want this particular hack to be tied to his nickname.
"Cracka was DotGovs he just didn't want to draw attention to himself," a hacker who used to be part of CWA told Motherboard.
The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and neither did the Department of Justice. The FBI has been trying to remove the most recent batch of hacked data from websites hosting it, by sending at least one takedown request.
Cracka could not be reached on Thursday. When last contacted, Motherboard asked him if he had something to say when news of his arrest would be made public.
He quickly and simply answered: "FreePalestine."
This story has been corrected. A SEROCU spokesperson said the hacker is 16, and not 15 as the police had initially reported.
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Last month, seven major movie studios and the Seven Network filed suit against iiNet for allegedly allowing its users to download pirated movies and TV shows. The landmark case will determine the lengths to which an internet provider must go to prevent illegal downloading on its network. A loss for the movie industry could leave it no choice but to go after individual downloaders, as has occurred in the US.
The movie studios argue that iiNet had a responsibility to disconnect customers they had identified as illegal downloaders. iiNet has vowed to vigorously defend the case, claiming it forwarded copyright infringement notices sent to it by the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft on to police and it was up to them, not iiNet, to decide whether someone was guilty of copyright infringement. ISPs argue that, like Australia Post with letters, they are just providing a service and should not be forced to become copyright police.
In today's directions hearing lawyers for iiNet began to frame its defense, saying the company "just provides the pipes". Conversely, the TV and movie industry want ISPs to disconnect people it has identified as repeat infringers. There would be no involvement from police or the courts and the industry would simply provide the IP addresses of users they believe to be illegal downloaders.
The movie industry's lawyers said in court today they would reject iiNet's claims that it was not liable for the actions of its users due to safe harbour provisions introduced with the US free trade agreement. The iiNet case is similar to the one the music industry brought against the Kazaa file sharing service in 2002, which ended in 2006 with Kazaa's owners handing over $100 million in damages. Additionally, in 2005, Stephen Cooper, the owner of MP3s4free.net, and the website's host, E-Talk Communications, were successfully sued by the music industry for infringing copyright by publishing hyperlinks to sites that contained illegal music.
Both cases were referenced by lawyers representing the movie studios in court today. But copyright law experts have said both cases were different because they showed a clear knowledge and encouragement of copyright infringement, whereas iiNet simply provides the internet connection and is in no way directly involved with illegal downloading.
The case returns to court for another directions hearing on February 6.
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Before we get into Standard & Poor’s decision to downgrade United States debt, it’s worth appreciating the events that immediately preceded the announcement.
Officials from Standard & Poor’s provided documents to the Treasury Department, explaining the downgrade. Obama administration officials noticed a problem: the S&P numbers didn’t add up.
On Friday, the company notified the Treasury that it planned to issue a downgrade after the markets closed, and sent the department a copy of the announcement, which is a standard procedure. A Treasury staff member noticed the $2 trillion mistake within the hour, according to a department official. The Treasury called the company and explained the problem. About an hour later, the company conceded the problem but did not indicate how it planned to proceed, the official said. Hours later, S.& P. issued a revised release with new numbers but the same conclusion.
Got that? S&P prepared an analysis to justify a specific conclusion. The analysis was off by $2 trillion. Treasury explained to S&P that the analysis wasn’t even close to being accurate, which led the ratings agency to concede they’d made a mistake.
And a few hours later, S&P decided to reach the same conclusion anyway. The agency wanted to proceed with a downgrade; whether its numbers added up was irrelevant.
That certainly inspires confidence in the integrity of Standard & Poor’s decision making, doesn’t it?
I’m reminded of something Joe Klein said in April, after S&P first started making threats about this.
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Students carry signs to protest Act 10 in February of 2011 near D.C. Everest High School in Weston. Daily Herald Media file photo Chad Dally/Wausau Daily HeraldD.C. Everest High School students, from left, Candace Perria, Nick Marvin, Emily Wurzer and Ashley Rawlings carry signs to protest Gov. Scott Walker's move to alter Wisconsin's union rights. The action at D.C. Everest was part of a mass protest at school districts throughout the area, including Merrill, Wausau and Mosinee. (Photo: File)
The Fond du Lac County Finance Committee is considering a proposal that would provide a workaround of the restrictions of the controversial collective bargaining law Act 10 for members of a public employees union.
County Human Resources Director Michael Marx sent a memorandum to the county's Finance Committee in May explaining the limitations the law placed on the AFSCME local 1366E Social Services union.
Act 10 removed the ability of public employees unions to negotiate for anything but a pay increase limited to the Consumer Price Index. The county board approved a 1.57-percent increase for the union's members, which is the maximum allowed under the law this year.
Other non-union county employees received a 2-percent increase without similar restrictions at the beginning of the year.
"In other words, this group is being penalized by the state because they didn't decertify their union," Board Chairman Martin Farrell said.
Marx recommended the board approve a supplemental pay increase for the more than 70 employees affected to make up for the difference. The extra pay would work like a bonus, being paid once in a lump sum in the first pay period of December.
The extra pay would also be based on the number of hours worked, ranging from 7 to 10 cents, depending on the employee's current wages, and would be increased by 1.5 times for overtime. Marx said the payments would amount to between $140 to $190, depending on the employee's wages.
Next year's supplemental pay would have to be reapproved by the board, and every year after, and can't be a part of the union's next contract negotiations. That's because the supplemental pay can't be part of the union's contact under Act 10 and is entirely at the discretion of the board, Marx said.
"This is just the least problematic way of getting the increase to the employees without creating extra coding in our system," County Executive Al Buechel said. "When you look at personnel administration, is it fair to keep everybody similar? In my opinion, it is."
County board supervisors discussed the proposal at their June 2 meeting and recommended the proposal be drafted into a resolution.
The committee may consider sending the proposal to the board at its next meeting June 16.
Reach Justin Kabbes at [email protected] or at 920-907-7925.
Read or Share this story: http://fondul.ac/1M8Mtwc
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President Barack Obama at a solar power plant in Nevada on March 21, 2012. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
(CNSNews.com) - The United States lost 9,000 manufacturing jobs in October while gaining 19,000 jobs in government, according to data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Government employment grew from 22,216,000 in September to 22,235,000 in October, according to BLS, while manufacturing jobs dropped from 12,267,000 to 12,258,000.
The 22,235,000 employed by government in the United States now outnumber the 12,258,000 employed in manufacturing by 9,977,000.
Over the past year—from October 2015 to October 2016—manufacturing employment fell by 53,000, declining from 12,311,000 to 12,258,000. During the same period, government employment climbed 208,000, rising from 22,027,000 to 22,235,000.
The BLS has published seasonally-adjusted month-by-month employment data for both government and manufacturing going back to January 1939. According to this data, manufacturing employees in the United States of America outnumbered government employees every month for more than half a century. Then, in August 1989, government employees slipped ahead of manufacturing employees for the first time—taking a slim lead of 17,989,000 to 17,964,000.
Since then, government has pulled dramatically ahead of manufacturing as an employer in the United States.
In fact, the 22,235,000 who now work for government in this country, according to the BLS, is more than ever worked in manufacturing.
Manufacturing employment peaked in June 1979 at 19,553,000. Since then, manufacturing employment has declined by 7,295,000—or 37.3 percent—to its current level of 12,258,000.
In June 1979, when manufacturing employment hit its peak, government employment was 16,045,000. Since then, government employment has increased by 6,190,000—or 38.6 percent—to its current level of 22,235,000.
The 22,235,000 employed by government exceed the populations of 48 of the 50 states. Only California, which the Census Bureau estimated had a population of 39,144,818 in 2015; and Texas, which the Census Bureau estimated had a population of 27,469,114, had populations that exceeded the number of people in the country who work for government.
The 22,235,000 government employees as of October, for example, exceeded the population of Florida (20,271,272) and the population of New York (19,795,791).
The 22,235,000 employed by government also exceed the combined populations of Ohio (11,613,423) and Michigan (9,922,576)—which equaled 21,535,999.
The 22,235,000 government employees in October, according to BLS, included 14,297,000 local government employees, 5,123,000 state government employees, and 2,815,000 federal government employees.
The business and economic reporting of CNSNews.com is funded in part with a gift made in memory of Dr. Keith C. Wold.
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Name: Koopa the Quick
Debut: Super Mario 64
Considering they’re one of the faces of the franchise, Super Mario 64 treated Koopa Troopas pretty weirdly, huh? There are only two regular ones in the whole game, and they run from Mario. When attacked, they’ll pop out of their shells, and instead of being able to kick them, Mario can ride them for some reason! It’s very weird.
When the Wii was new, Wendy’s Kids’ Meals had a set of Wii toys, including Mario on a shell with a magnet inside, that could be pushed using a magnet in the accompanying toy remote! I had it. It didn’t really work.
Anyway! Koopa the quick! He’s a big ol’ Koopa who challenges you to a race, and you get a Star if you win. It’s as simple as that! Please race fairly, though. He won’t give you the Star if you use a cannon or a wing cap! He doesn’t seem to notice if you use one of those weird warp areas, but it’s still rude.
Wouldn’t you know it, there’s actually an explanation for Koopa the Quick’s huge size! His home is the huge version of Tiny-Huge Island. In the tiny version, there’s a single Koopa Troopa… is it him? Can you kill Koopa the Quick if you so desire?! This is the same game that lets you drop a baby penguin off of a cliff, so probably… and no, I never did that! You monster!
Koopa the Quick only appeared in Super Mario 64 and Super Mario 64 DS, but his legacy lives on in Odyssey! The Roving Racers are a group of Koopas who simply love to race, and will gladly challenge Mario, giving him a Power Moon for winning.
Once Mario wins, he can challenge the squad to a rematch, now including the gold racer! Simply the fastest turtle in town, he knows all the shortcuts and how to do all the cool moves. But with a backwards cap like that, of course, of course he’s cool!
Clearly, the implication here is that at some point after Super Mario 64, Koopa the Quick, not content with racing other challengers, split his soul into five smaller Koopas, so he could race against himself as much as he pleased.
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Whether tuned into the game’s various intricacies, no matter how subtle, or merely a casual observer, everyone has different reasons for watching Major League Baseball. For me, it’s stellar defense through and through. A love of defense is the reason that I openly advocated for Nick Ahmed to have a starting gig on a real life baseball team. And as many things as there are to be ecstatic over with these Chicago Cubs heading into 2017, it’s defense that has me bouncing off the walls ready for their return in the new campaign.
Javier Baez has been the subject of a couple of pieces here recently, both focused on what he does on offense. Dan Hodgman looked at Baez earning a spot in the lineup with regularity in 2017, while Sam Fels examined what an occasional appearance in the leadoff spot might look like for Javy. But the focus here is purely of a defensive nature—delving into exactly what makes Javy Baez such a special player with the leather.
Baez is Weapon X. He’s so much more than a statistically sound player. His hands are unbelievable and his instincts are a rarity in the game. While much of what he does is difficult to properly portray on a stat sheet, the numbers that he has posted in regard to defensive metrics are absolutely worth exploring.
Versatility is a large part of what makes Baez such an intriguing entity. He grabbed time at second base, shortstop, and third base, as well as about 21 innings at first and even a couple in left in the 2016 season. He obviously has the athleticism to spend quality time at each position, but he plays them all so well (did the italics make that dramatic enough?). While the metrics don’t say much about his time at first or in the outfield because of a small sample, there’s a lot to like about his time across the rest of the infield. The following features Baseball Prospectus’ Fielding Runs Above Average, as well as a handful of figures from FanGraphs (among them Revised Zone Rating [RZR], Out of Zone plays [OOZ], Defensive Runs Saved [DRS], and Ultimate Zone Rating [UZR]):
Innings (2016) Fielding% RZR OOZ DRS UZR/150 FRAA First Base 21.0 1.000 .833 0 0 1.0 Total: 3.8 Second Base 383.0 .973 .864 9 11 16.3 Shortstop 194.0 .981 .841 15 4 25.1 Third Base 370.2 .944 .676 16 1 3.9
(Source: FanGraphs)
Given just the two innings in which he appeared in the outfield, those numbers are excluded, and there are obviously elements of defensive metrics that contain gray area, but this still provides something tangible to look at, at the very least.
His RZR, while certainly not widely used, painted him as an above average player in that small sample at first, as well as second and short. And UZR/150 has him afloat in each category, with very strong figures coming out of the middle infield, although it’s important to note that something like UZR doesn’t stabilize for at least 2-3 seasons.
FRAA doesn’t come through for each individual position, but a 3.8 figure overall has him just below “Great” on the various levels, with a chance to grow from there. While some of these figures don’t scream “elite level position player,” it’s important to note that Baez had significantly less time than any player at any one position, so there’s something to be said about the fact that nearly every statistic pictured above can still paint him in a positive light.
What’s particularly impressive is that he was able to come up with 11 DRS at second, which trailed the league leaders at the position by just one, and that’s while playing only 383 innings at the position. The likes of Dustin Pedroia and Ian Kinsler appeared in over 1,290 innings, and Robinson Cano, who tied Baez with 11, came in with 1,376.1. An average of 1,322 innings against Baez’s 383 and the difference in Defensive Runs Saved is microscopic.
That’s absurdly impressive.
But not everything that Javy Baez can do on a baseball field can be quantified and accurately illustrated on a stat sheet. His instincts and his hands are off the charts, something that become more and more apparent the longer the Cubs played last fall. The play that, of course, immediately comes to mind is the liner in Game Two that Baez let drop right in front of him in order to create the force, resulting in a double play. Those instincts play well into a supreme situational awareness showcased in his ability to expertly tag out baserunners on the move.
Statistics don’t necessarily allow accounting for instincts. But when you watch Baez play defense, that’s among the first words that come to mind. He reads the ball so incredibly well off the bat that there are very few plays, in or out of his zone, that he can’t physically make. Which is what makes him such a versatile asset. Whether he’s at second or short or playing on one of the corners, he can read the ball off the bat effectively and make the play. And he has the arm to compensate for almost any play that he makes on the infield, another thing difficult to quantify on paper but that becomes extremely evident within seconds of watching Baez step on a baseball field.
The hands can be somewhat explained. He’s naturally left-handed and does write lefty, among other things. The value of an asset like that cannot be overstated, as we saw time and time again with Baez flashing an ability to quickly bring his hands down to tag out potential base stealers or help a pitcher grab a pickoff in a key situation. Such strength with his left hand is yet another unique quality in an very unique player.
Metrics may never help to depict Javy Baez as an elite player. There are some mental lapses that come with the territory with Baez. It happens. But I would argue that there is not a player in baseball that is more of a defensive asset than him. He can play each of the four positions across the infield, and play them at an above average level, at minimum. That versatility combined with stupid instincts (that’s a technical term), unbelievable hands, and an absolute cannon for an arm provides the Chicago Cubs with a weapon that they didn’t need, but are surely thankful to have.
The bat is going to continue to be a work in progress, especially the approach. But while that comes along, Baez’s constant brand of stellar defense is going to keep him in the lineup as much as possible. When you combine that with his somehow-still-increasing versatility and the Cubs have as exciting a player as there is to watch on the defensive side of things heading into 2017.
Lead photo courtesy David Richard—USA Today Sports
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Mitt Romney knew his past at private equity firm Bain Capital would come under assault in the general election, as it did during the primary campaign. And now, with Romney the GOP’s presumptive nominee, the attacks have begun.
President Obama’s campaign is out with two new, hard-hitting television ads blasting Bain’s role in the 2001 bankruptcy of GST Steel in Kansas City, Missouri. As Reuters reported, Bain invested in GST in the early 1990s when Mitt was at the helm, only for the deal to collapse, the mill to close, and 750 workers to lose their jobs. GST’s bankruptcy is often spotlighted by Romney’s critics as evidence that he’s a cutthroat capitalist willing to fire workers to pad his own pockets.
The new Obama ads—one runs for two minutes, the other for six—feature a handful of steelworkers ripping Romney as a “vampire” who “came in and sucked the life out of us.” Says one steelworker, “We view Mitt Romney as a job destroyer.” Romney campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul said in a statement responding to the ads: “We welcome the Obama campaign’s attempt to pivot back to jobs and a discussion of their failed record. Mitt Romney helped create more jobs in his private sector experience and more jobs as governor of Massachusetts than President Obama has for the entire nation.”
The two-minute ad will run in battleground states Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Colorado.
Here are the two ads:
The campaign also launched a new website, RomneyEconomics.com, highlighting three Bain deals that resulted in bankruptcies or layoffs. Consider the new ads and the website a preview of things to come.
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At a community college in upstate New York, 12 cafeteria workers recently learned that they will lose their jobs — and be replaced by self-serve machines. It’s an issue that has played out in communities across the country, as robots get better and better at doing jobs — from taking fast food orders to mining coal — that once belonged to humans.
Is your job next? The answer to that question is complicated, according to a report by management consultant McKinsey, but most workers don’t need to worry. Experts found that less than 5% of jobs can be completely replaced by technology, though nearly every job involves tasks that robots could learn to do.
Enter your occupation below to see how much of your work may someday be done by machines.
(For the complete version of the interactive, click here.)
Jobs with predictable activities in structured environments are the easiest to replicate with robots, a process known as automation. McKinsey estimates that 51% of all job-related activities in the U.S. economy fit this description, largely in manufacturing, food service and retail trade sectors.
“If you look at the specific jobs affected, you can get depressed,” says Malcolm Frank, author of What To Do When Machines Do Everything. “But if you look in broader context, there’s room for optimism.” Frank points to the 1800s, when nearly 80% of U.S. labor was focused on agriculture. “Today that number is about 2%, yet we saw geometric growth in the U.S. economy. What the machine takes away, it also gives back with entirely new industries, entirely new types of jobs,” he adds. Fields growing today include computing and data science, according to experts.”
While many of the robots’ gains cut into blue collar jobs, it’s not all bad news for those workers, says University of Cincinnati economics professor Michael Jones. “Electricians, plumbers, and contractors are not going to be replaced,” he says. These workers solve unique challenges in varying environments — tasks difficult for machines.
And white collar jobs, in turn, are no longer necessarily safe from automation.
“We’re starting to see computers help corporations make financial decisions, and help IT companies manage cybersecurity,” says Frank. Jones agrees, citing the example of Goldman Sachs, which replaced nearly 600 equity traders with software and 200 computer programmers.
Click here for more articles from Time Inc.’s Looking Forward series.
Even if a task can be automated, that doesn’t mean it will happen overnight. Barriers to adopting new technology include the high cost, as well as the response from clients who are accustomed to interacting with humans. “Do consumers want a robot to give them a physical at the doctor’s office, or to take their order at a restaurant?” Jones asks. Though self-serve kiosks have become much cheaper, restaurants still have to test how consumers feel about ordering from a tablet. “That is, unless labor costs get really high,” Jones says. “Seattle’s minimum wage is 15 dollars an hour, twice the federal minimum wage. That might drive technology adoption much quicker.”
Though counterintuitive, Frank believes that automation will make us more creative in the long run. “We’re going to allow machines to do what machines do with excellence, and humans can do what humans do best.” He gives the example of teachers, who could benefit from a robot that reviews homework, helping to identify each student’s needs. “The rote work has been removed,” he says, “freeing up humans to do higher impact, more creative work.”
Correction: The original version of this story misstated the school where Michael Jones is a professor. It’s the University of Cincinnati, not the University of Ohio.
Contact us at [email protected].
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Anaheim, California (CNN) -- In the shadows of Disneyland, often referred to as the "happiest place on Earth," many children are living a reality that's far from carefree.
They are living in cheap motels more commonly associated with drug dealers, prostitutes and illicit affairs.
It's the only option for many families that are struggling financially and can't scrape together a deposit for an apartment. By living week to week in these cramped quarters, they stay one step ahead of homelessness.
"Some people are stuck, they have no money. They need to live in that room," said Bruno Serato, a local chef and restaurateur. "They've lost everything they have. They have no other chance. No choice."
While "motel kids" are found across the United States, the situation is very common in Orange County, California, a wealthy community with high rents and a large number of old motels. In 2009, local authorities estimated that more than 1,000 families lived in these conditions.
When Serato learned that these children often go hungry, he began serving up assistance, one plate at a time. To date, he's served more than 270,000 pasta dinners -- for free -- to those in need.
"Kids should not be suffering," Serato said. "[I had] to do something."
Serato, 55, has always given back to the community where he achieved his American dream. When the Italian immigrant arrived in the U.S. 30 years ago, his poor English skills forced him to settle for a job as a dishwasher. But within five years, he had become chef and owner of the Anaheim White House, an Italian restaurant that is now a local hot spot.
In 2003, he created Caterina's Club, which raises money for underprivileged children. The charity is named after Serato's mother, who taught him how to cook at the family's trattoria in Verona, Italy.
When she came to California in 2005 to visit her son, he took her to the local Boys & Girls Club, the main recipient of the charity's funds. There, they saw a small boy eating a bag of potato chips and learned that this snack was his supper.
Bruno said his mother was shocked by the boy's meager meal. She had raised seven children and always made sure food was on the dinner table, even during the lean years after World War II.
"My mama ... her whole life was to feed kids," he said.
The Seratos found out that the boy lived in a motel with his family. The situation was so common in the area that the Anaheim Boys & Girls Club had a "motel kids" program, where vans pick up the children after school and drop them off at the motels every night. While these children receive free breakfast and lunch through school programs, their parents often don't have the resources to give them dinner.
Caterina found it unacceptable that the children would go to bed without supper. Speaking in rapid Italian, she made her feelings clear to her son.
"Mom said, 'Bruno, you must feed them the pasta!' " Serato recalled.
When he discovered that this meant feeding around 70 children, he demurred. But his mother insisted. He went back to his restaurant and prepared 70 pasta dinners to serve at the club.
His mother helped him that first night, and Serato has maintained the ritual nearly every night for more than six years -- even through the recession.
The economic downturn was a challenge, though. Serato lost 30% to 40% of his customers, and the number of children he fed each night more than doubled. He often found himself giving away more meals than he served in his restaurant, and he was forced to refinance his home to keep going. But Serato found that his work with the children helped sustain him, at least on a personal level.
"So many nights ... it was not too many customers," he said. "[To] know that I served 150 kids ... it made me feel better."
Today, Serato's business has rebounded, and his program feeds nearly 200 children, in two locations, seven days a week. He also pays for drivers to transport the kids to the Boys & Girls Club, and he has purchased another van. All told, he estimates that the endeavor costs him around $2,000 a month.
Do you know a hero? Nominations are open for 2011 CNN Heroes
Michael Baker, the executive director of the Anaheim Boys & Girls Club, says many of the "motel kids" he serves depend on Serato's meals. He also relishes the irony of the situation.
"These are some of the poorest kids in Anaheim eating from one of the most exclusive restaurants every night," he said. "I love that!"
Carlos Gomez, 12, has lived in a motel room with his family -- a total of six people -- for almost his entire life. He and his younger brother Anthony often eat Serato's pasta, and his father, Martin, says it's a relief to know that his children can get a free meal.
"I no longer worry as much, about them [coming home] and there being no food," he said. "I know that they eat over there at [the] Boys & Girls Club."
This spring, Serato plans to expand his program to an additional 100 kids a night, and he will partner with another organization to give 100 children three meals a day.
He is also calling on other restaurants around the country to work together to feed "motel kids." He believes that providing just a few dinners a night could make a significant difference.
"Every restaurant in the country -- Chinese, Indian, Mexican, French -- let's do it all together," Serato said. "We would have no hungry children."
Serato's love for the children is clear, but he's quick to give all of the credit to his beloved "mama" back in Italy. Although she suffers from Parkinson's disease, he still talks to her via Skype every morning and believes that if she knew how their work has grown, she would be proud.
Although his mother made him start the work, he now says he could never stop helping the children.
"They're customers," he says with a smile. "My favorite customers."
Want to get involved? Check out the Caterina's Club website at www.thecaterinasclub.org and see how to help.
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The "gun" assembly method
Gun-type fission weapons are fission-based nuclear weapons whose design assembles their fissile material into a supercritical mass by the use of the "gun" method: shooting one piece of sub-critical material into another. Although this is sometimes pictured as two sub-critical hemispheres driven together to make a supercritical sphere, typically a hollow projectile is shot onto a spike which fills the hole in its center. Its name is a reference to the fact that it is shooting the material through an artillery barrel as if it were a projectile. Other potential arrangements may include firing two pieces into each other simultaneously, though whether this approach has been used in actual weapons designs is unknown.
Since it is a relatively slow method of assembly, plutonium cannot be used unless it is purely the 239 isotope. Production of impurity-free plutonium is very difficult and is impractical. The required amount of uranium is relatively large, and thus the overall efficiency is relatively low.
The method was applied in four known programs. First, the "Little Boy" weapon which was detonated over Hiroshima and several additional units of the same design prepared after World War II, in 40 Mark 8 bombs, and their replacement, 40 Mark 11 bombs. Both the Mark 8 and Mark 11 designs were intended for use as earth-penetrating bombs (see nuclear bunker buster), for which the gun-type method was preferred for a time by designers who were less than certain that early implosion-type weapons would successfully detonate following an impact. The second program was a family of 11-inch nuclear artillery shells, the W9 and its derivative W19, plus a repackaged W19 in a 16-inch shell for US Navy battleships, the W23. The third family was an 8-inch artillery shell, the W33. Later, South Africa also developed six nuclear bombs based on the gun-type principle, and was working on missile warheads using the same basic design – See South Africa and weapons of mass destruction.
There are currently no known gun-type weapons in service: advanced nuclear weapon states tended to abandon the design in favor of the implosion-type weapons, boosted fission weapons, and thermonuclear weapons. New nuclear weapon states tend to develop boosted fission and thermonuclear weapons only. All known gun-type nuclear weapons previously built worldwide have been dismantled.
Little Boy [ edit ]
The interior of the Little Boy weapon used against Hiroshima. The uranium-235 is indicated in red.
The "gun" method is roughly how the Little Boy weapon, which was detonated over Hiroshima, worked, using uranium-235 as its fissile material. In the Little Boy design, the U-235 "bullet" had a mass of around 86 pounds (39 kg), and it was 7 inches (17.8 cm) long, with a diameter of 6.25 inches (15.9 cm). The hollow cylindrical shape made it subcritical. It was powered by a cordite charge. The uranium target spike was about 57.3 pounds (26 kg). Both the bullet and the target consisted of multiple rings stacked together.
The use of "rings" had two advantages: it allowed the larger bullet to confidently remain subcritical (the hollow column served to keep the material from having too much contact with other material), and it allowed sub-critical assemblies to be tested using the same bullet but with just one ring.
The barrel had an inside diameter of 6.5 inches (16.5 cm). Its length was 70.8 inches (1.8 m), which allowed the bullet to accelerate to its final speed of 984 feet per second (300 m/s) before coming into contact with the target.
When the bullet is at a distance of 9.8 inches (25 cm), the combination becomes critical. This means that some free neutrons may cause the chain reaction to take place before the material could be fully joined (see nuclear chain reaction).
Typically the chain reaction takes less than 1 μs (100 shakes), during which time the bullet travels only 0.3 mm. Although the chain reaction is slower when the supercriticality is low, it still happens in a time so short that the bullet hardly moves in that time.
This could cause a fizzle, a predetonation which would blow the material apart before creating much of an explosion. Thus it is important that the frequency at which free neutrons occur is kept low, compared with the assembly time from this point. This also means that the speed of the projectile must be sufficiently high; its speed can be increased but this requires a longer and heavier barrel.
In the case of Little Boy, the 20% U-238 in the uranium had 70 spontaneous fissions per second. With the fissionable material in a supercritical state, each gave a large probability of detonation: each fission creates on average 2.52 neutrons, which each have a probability of more than 1:2.52 of creating another fission. During the 1.35 ms of supercriticality prior to full assembly, there was a 10% probability of a fission, with somewhat less probability of pre-detonation.
shown above) and focused almost entirely around the problem of implosion. In July 1944 the laboratory abandoned the plutonium gun-type bomb (" Thin Man ",) and focused almost entirely around the problem of implosion.
Weapon effects - Hiroshima in ruins after the Little Boy atomic bomb exploded
Initially the Manhattan Project gun-type effort was directed at making a gun weapon that used plutonium as its source of fissile material, known as the "Thin Man" because of its extreme length. It was thought that if a plutonium gun-type bomb could be created, then the uranium gun-type bomb would be very easy to make by comparison. However, it was discovered in April 1944 that reactor-bred plutonium (Pu-239) is contaminated with another isotope of plutonium, Pu-240, which increases the material's spontaneous neutron-release rate, making pre-detonation inevitable. For this reason, a gun-type bomb is thought to only be usable with an enriched-uranium bomb.
After it was discovered that the "Thin Man" program would not be successful, Los Alamos redirected its efforts into creating the implosion-type plutonium weapon: "Fat Man". The gun program switched completely over to developing a uranium bomb.
Although in Little Boy 132 pounds (60 kg) of 80%-grade U-235 was used (hence 106 pounds or 48 kilograms), the minimum is about 44 to 55 pounds (20 to 25 kg), versus 33 pounds (15 kg) for the implosion method.
The scientists who designed the "Little Boy" weapon were confident enough of its success that they did not field-test a design before using it in war (though scientists such as Louis Slotin did perform non-destructive tests with sub-critical assemblies, dangerous experiments nicknamed tickling the dragon's tail). In any event, it could not be tested before being deployed, as there was only sufficient U-235 available for one device. Even though the design was never proof-tested, there was thought to be no risk of the device being captured by an enemy if it malfunctioned. Even a "fizzle" would have completely disintegrated the device, while the multiple redundancies built into the "Little Boy" design meant there was negligible if any potential for the device to strike the ground without detonating at all.
For a quick start of the chain reaction at the right moment a neutron trigger/initiator is used. An initiator is not strictly necessary for an effective gun design,[1][2] as long as the design uses "target capture" (in essence, ensuring that the two subcritical masses, once fired together, cannot come apart until they explode). Considering the 70 spontaneous fissions per second, this only causes a delay of a few times 1/70 second, which in this case does not matter. Initiators were only added to Little Boy late in its design.
Proliferation and terrorism [ edit ]
With regard to the risk of proliferation and use by terrorists, the relatively simple design is a concern, as it does not require as much fine engineering or manufacturing as other methods. With enough highly enriched uranium, nations or groups with relatively low levels of technological sophistication could create an inefficient—though still quite powerful—gun-type nuclear weapon.
Comparison with the implosion method [ edit ]
Schematic of the gun-type method (above) and the implosion-type method (below).
For technologically advanced states the gun-type method is now essentially obsolete, for reasons of efficiency and safety (discussed above). The gun type method was largely abandoned by the United States as soon as the implosion technique was perfected, though it was retained in the specialised role of nuclear artillery for a time. Other nuclear powers, such as the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union never built an example of this type of weapon. Besides requiring the use of highly enriched U-235, the technique has other severe limitations. The implosion technique is much better suited to the various methods employed to reduce the weight of the weapon and increase the proportion of material which fissions. South Africa built around five gun-type weapons, and no implosion-type weapons. They later abandoned their nuclear weapon program altogether. They were unique in their abandonment of nuclear weapons, and probably also by building gun-type weapons rather than implosion-type weapons.
There are also safety problems with gun-type weapons. For example, it is inherently dangerous to have a weapon containing a quantity and shape of fissile material that can form a critical mass through a relatively simple accident. Furthermore, if the weapon is dropped from an aircraft into the sea, then the moderating effect of the seawater can also cause a criticality accident without the weapon even being physically damaged. Neither can happen with an implosion-type weapon, since there is normally insufficient fissile material to form a critical mass without the correct detonation of the explosive lenses.
US nuclear artillery [ edit ]
The gun method has also been applied for nuclear artillery shells, since the simpler design can be more easily engineered to withstand the rapid acceleration and g-forces imparted by an artillery gun, and since the smaller diameter of the gun-type design can be relatively easily fitted to projectiles that can be fired from existing artillery.
A US gun-type nuclear artillery weapon, the W9, was tested on May 25, 1953 at the Nevada Test Site. Fired as part of Operation Upshot–Knothole and codenamed Shot GRABLE, a 280 mm shell was fired 10,000 m and detonated 160 m above the ground with an estimated yield of 15 kilotons. This is approximately the same yield as Little Boy, although the W9 had less than 1/10 of Little Boy's weight (365 kg vs. 4000 kg, or 805 lbs vs. 8819 lbs). The shell was 1384 mm long.
This was the only nuclear artillery shell ever actually fired (from an artillery gun) in the US test program. It was fired from a specially built artillery piece, nicknamed Atomic Annie. Eighty shells were produced from 1952-53. It was retired in 1957.
The W19 was also a 280 mm gun-type nuclear shell, a longer version of the W-9. Eighty warheads were produced and the system was retired in 1963.
The W33 was a smaller, 8 inch (203 mm) gun-type nuclear artillery shell, which was produced starting in 1957 and in service until 1992. Two were test fired (detonated, not fired from an artillery gun), one hung under a balloon in the open air, and one in an underground tunnel.
Later versions were based on the implosion design.
List of US gun-type weapons [ edit ]
Bombs
Artillery
Other
Simulation of "Little Boy" an interactive simulation of the gun-type design atomic bomb "Little Boy"
See also [ edit ]
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Former chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission Trevor Philips will present a documentary based around the findings (Picture: Simon James/GC Images)
More than half of British Muslims believe homosexuality should be not be legal in the UK.
That is the result of a study that polled 1,801 adult Muslims on issues including relationships, polygamy and law.
It found that 52 per cent of those quizzed disagreed that homosexuality should be legal in Britain.
The poll also discovered that 31 per cent believe it is acceptable for Muslim men to have more than one wife, and 23 per cent would support parts of Britain being governed by Sharia law rather than British law.
And while the poll of men and women found that 39 per cent believe wives should always obey their husbands, as many as 79 per cent condemned stoning those who have cheated on their partner.
The full findings from the ICM poll will feature in Channel 4 documentary What British Muslims Really Think, which airs on Wednesday.
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Presented by former head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission Trevor Philips, the programme will investigate the differences between British Muslims and the rest of the country.
Philips said ‘the integration of Muslims will probably be the hardest task’ the country has ever faced.
MORE: Islamists fight against bill that protects women from domestic violence
He told The Sunday Times Magazine: ‘I thought Europe’s Muslims would gradually blend into the landscape. I should have known better.
‘Britain desperately wants us to think of its Muslims as versions of the Great British Bake Offwinner Nadiya Hussain, or the cheeky-chappy athlete Mo Farah.
‘But thanks to the most detailed and comprehensive survey of British Muslim opinion yet conducted, we know that just isn’t how it is.’
Nadiya Hussain stole the country’s hearts on last year’s Great British Bake Off (Picture: Ken McKay/ITV/REX/Shutterstock)
More than 80 per cent of Muslims surveyed said they felt British and were happy living here.
But they conceded they were more likely to stay within their own communities, especially when it came to relationships.
The ICM figures reported that more than half mix with non-Muslims each day, but one in five never enter a non-Muslim household.
A previous version of this article included a graphic which was incorrect in relation to the question “Homosexuality should be legal in Britain”, stating that 52% of Muslims agreed with the statement.
In fact, as our article made clear, the results of the poll were that 52% of Muslims disagreed with the statement. We have replaced the graphic with the correct data.
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"The 'regime of silence' in Aleppo and its province has been extended by 48 hours from Tuesday 01:00 am (local time) to midnight on Wednesday," a statement early Tuesday said.
The temporary truce, initially for two days and then prolonged until Tuesday at 00:01 am (21:01 GMT Monday), was decided after fighting killed nearly 300 people since April 22 in Aleppo, where some areas are held by opposition and others by government forces.
The announcement came as Russia and the United States agreed to boost efforts to find a political solution to Syria's five-year war which has killed more than 270,000 people and displaced millions, according to AFP.
The two powers also agreed to extend a truce across the whole of the country.
"The Russian Federation and United States are determined to redouble efforts to reach a political settlement of the Syrian conflict," according to a joint US-Russian statement published by the Russian foreign ministry.
To this end, Russia "will work with the Syrian authorities to minimize aviation operations over areas that are predominantly inhabited by civilians or parties" to the ceasefire, it said.
The two powers brokered a February 27 ceasefire between the government and the armed opposition that did not, however, include terrorist fighters such as the Daesh (ISIL) group and Al-Qaeda's Syria affiliate, Al-Nusra Front.
On Sunday, armed opposition groups fired rockets into a government-held district of Aleppo, killing five civilians including two children.
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Olympic gold medallist Michael Diamond acquitted of firearms convictions
Updated
Two-time Olympic shooting gold medallist Michael Diamond has been acquitted of three firearms convictions that effectively ended his illustrious shooting career.
Diamond was found guilty of the offences in May this year, seeing him banned from holding a gun licence for 10 years.
He later lodged an appeal which a Newcastle court today upheld while quashing his local court convictions after a judge questioned the legality of a car search.
It was alleged the 45-year-old was involved in a domestic incident with his brother at Nelson Bay, before he was stopped by officers on the road.
Police said he refused to undergo a roadside breath test and when police searched his car they allegedly found a shotgun and 150 rounds of ammunition.
He was charged with high-range drink-driving, not keeping a firearm safe and using a firearm while under the influence of alcohol.
A local court magistrate later convicted Diamond and he was then ruled ineligible for nomination for the Rio 2016 Olympics - an event he had previously competed in six times before.
Outside court Diamond said losing his spot in his seventh Olympics was a "costly price to pay" due to the 10-year gun licence ban.
He also said he hoped to get his firearms licence back immediately.
"I am relieved," he said.
"It's been a long 17 months.
"It's really good to see that common sense has prevailed today. It would be great to resume life back in the sport that I grew up with."
The trap shooter wants the Crown to pay his court costs, but has ruled out seeking compensation.
"I am just going to get on with my life and rebuild my image again."
Questions over police search
Judge Roy Ellis, who presided over the appeal, said police can conduct an on-the-spot search so long as a demand is made, but in this case no such demand was made.
Prosecutor PJ O'Brien continually argued Diamond had kept the firearm unsafe in his car and should have taken extra precautions to keep it safe.
However, Justice Ellis rejected those claims, saying the vehicle had tinted windows and the gun case held a dismantled gun not capable of firing.
"If the car had been unlocked, if the car had clear windows, if the gun was not disassembled, there would have been a clear argument to say it was unsafe," he said.
Mr O'Brien argued Diamond's high-range drink-driving reading heightened the level of danger which was again rejected by Justice Ellis.
"Even if you're drinking it doesn't mean you can't keep your firearm safe," the judge said.
Judge makes reference to Las Vegas shooting
Judge Ellis also referred to the latest US mass shooting in Las Vegas while considering Australia's rules governing the use of guns.
He said it highlighted the need for gun laws, but those laws must fit the crime.
"You only have to look at what happened in America yesterday to realise why we have our rules, but you can't give extended meaning to those rules," he said.
Justice Ellis said Diamond's conduct with his disassembled gun did not endanger anybody and he made reference to mass murderer Martin Bryant.
Bryant, who murdered 35 people in the 1996 Port Arthur massacre, was also convicted of using a firearm while under the influence of alcohol.
Justice Ellis noted that Bryant's actions amounted to handling a weapon dangerously, unlike those of Diamond who had a disassembled gun that was not loaded and was being transported from point A to B in a storage box.
Topics: courts-and-trials, sport, shooting, newcastle-2300
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Upstart credit card processing company Square—which has disrupted the credit card payments industry by giving away credit card readers that pop into smartphones—says it is now processing the equivalent of $2 billion a year in credit card transactions from customers, and now has a customer base of some 8.2 million merchants, most of whom had never previously accepted credit cards. Square’s COO Keith Rabois describes that as equal to about 10 percent of the customer base covered by Visa and MasterCard—and now the company is removing transaction limits for new customers, making it easier for business to get on board.
That rate of adoption means Square is pulling in $55 million in transaction fees alone, on an annualized basis. The company recently raised $100 million in new financing.
Since launching last year, Square has limited payment processing for new customers to $1,000—transactions over that amount could be held up for as long as a month unless the company went through additional verification processes. Now, new customers will be able to receive all their funds the next business day; Square says they’ve now been operating long enough that they can catch anomalous and fraudulent activity, and doesn’t need a 30-day hold on new accounts.
Although Square how has major backing from Visa and other investors, the startup has proven very disruptive in the mobile payments industry. Square gives away credit card readers that pop into audio jacks of smartphones and other devices, enabling customers to handle point-of-sale credit card transactions with just a phone and an Internet connection. Square takes 2.75 percent of each swipe, and handles Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover.
Although credit card industry initially attacked the Square reader for being insecure and little more than a tool for card-skimmers—and recent activity at the Black Hat security conference exploited the Square reader’s current lack of hardware authentication, amongst other things—Square’s offering has proven popular with many businesses—particularly small businesses and individual merchants for whom the cost and overhead of a traditional merchant account and traditional secured card reader were too burdensome. Square says readers with hardware encryption are coming later this year.
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The International Policy Network, once the most persuasive and active think tanks campaigning against climate change science, has disbanded in the UK after what appears to be a split between its leading members.
A document released following a Freedom of Information request shows that the charity’ s chairwoman Linda Whetstone and her brother Michael Fisher held a private meeting in which they agreed to abandon the name of IPN UK after more than a decade. The meeting, held by telephone in November 2010, was perfectly within the charity's rules.
The minutes of the meeting, which cover a single side of an A4 sheet of paper, were obtained by The Independent this week and reveal that Whetstone also resigned from the board of the International Policy Network in the United States, despite being a leading member of the organisation.
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This newspaper has also confirmed that Professor Julian Morris, a founding director of the IPN UK and US, is no longer a paid employee for IPN US where he was earning $137,000; he works for the US organisation on a part-time and voluntary basis as its president. He is now vice president for research at a rival think tank, the Reason Foundation.
Professor Morris, after speaking at a meeting on Wednesday, June 15 being held by a new think tank called the Legatum Institute, said: “The IPN is scaling down. There were two organisations, the IPN US Inc and IPN UK and now the two organisations are pursuing independent paths."
Asked whether the IPN had split over climate change, he added: “It is a long and complex story. It is what it is. I can see where you’re going with this.”
The closure of the free market IPN follows years of controversy about Exxon funding, alleged links to the tobacco industry and contested claims about Aids and the pesticide DDT.
It is possible, however, that the closure may be linked to family connections involving David Cameron that meant IPN could no longer exist as a major force of climate denial.
Whetstone is the mother-in-law of Steve Hilton, who is the director of strategy for the prime minister and was godfather to his son Ivan. Hilton is the man who persuaded the Conservative leader to adopt a robust stance on climate change and hug Huskies on the Norwegian glacier to illustrate his commitment.
Hilton’s wife, Rachel Whetstone, is a vice president at Google for communications, which has donated millions to climate change causes, including creating 21 Google Science Communication Fellows.
Linda Whetstone and her brother Michael, the trustees present at the private meeting, are the children of Sir Anthony Fisher who was an ideological disciple and former student of the father of neoliberalism, Friedrich Hayek. Fisher senior masterminded the global network of neoliberal think tanks, including setting up more than 150 organisations himself.
The launch of the International Policy Network’s publication Adapt or Die was reported in November 2004. The charity claimed climate change was a myth, that sea levels were not rising and that global warming would benefit humans by increasing fish stocks.
At that time Dr Roger Bate was also a director of the IPN. Morris and Bate were both named in a letter asking the tobacco company RJ Reynolds for £50,000 in funding for a book about the “myth of scientific risk assessment” which would deny the effects of passive smoking.
Morris denied involvement, but a book titled What Risk? edited by Bate was later produced in which Bate acknowledged Morris for his support.
The IPN name soon became associated with ExxonMobil after the American oil giant revealed in its own publications that it granted almost £250,000 ($400,000) to the IPN in the US between 2003 and 2006. An examination of IPN UK accounts registered at Companies House revealed that from 2003 to 2005 the US think tank in turn granted £204,379 to the IPN in London.
Exxon stopped funding the IPN following a letter in 2006 from Bob Ward who was then at the Royal Society calling on the world’ s largest seller of fossil fuel to stop funding organisations that were actively spreading misinformation about the science of human forced climate change. Ward is now at the Grantham Institute at the LSE in London.
An IPN statement at the time said: “The implication that IPN is somehow being funded by Exxon to promote ‘climate change denial’ (per the Guardian’s salacious headline) is preposterous nonsense. IPN’s founder and executive director, Julian Morris, has personally been involved in the climate change debate since writing his undergraduate thesis on the subject in 1992 and neither his views nor those of IPN have ever been influenced by any financial contributor.”
Until its dissolution the IPN has been central to the climate change denial machine. While receiving funding from Exxon, the organisation launched Adapt or Die in Washington in 2004 and published two further climate change books in time for the COP-10 meeting held that year in Argentina.
The IPN also attended the inquiry into the economics of climate change held by the House of Lords economic affairs committee, which was attended by Lord Lawson. Lawson claims in his book, Memoirs of a Tory Radical, that he began to question the science of climate change during the hearings. He would then go on to form the sceptic Global Warming Policy Foundation.
The think tank also established and launched the Civil Society Coalition on Climate
Change which, it claims, included 40 other organisations around the world. The IPN then “ coordinated participation of CSCCC members” at the UN climate meeting in Bali in 2008, distributing hundreds of copies of its report to delegates, participants and journalists for free.
The IPN was launched when the UK charity Atlas Economic Research Foundation, which was founded in July 1971, became part of the international network. During its existence the London office of the think tank raised more than £2.5million from donors. The organisation will continue in some form under the name Network for a Free Society.
Despite repeated attempts to contact her Linda Whetstone was unavailable for comment.
* The article above has been amended. It originally said that Professor Julian Morris, the former director of IPN UK, no longer works for IPN US. In fact, although his paid employment with the organisation came to an end in December 2010, he continues to work on a part-time, voluntary, basis as its president. We also speculated that the closure of IPN UK and its split from IPN US may have been over climate change. Professor Morris and Linda Whetstone, the UK charity’s ex-chair, deny this. Linda Whetstone says: "The decision to change the name of the organisation to Network For a Free Society was entirely unrelated to IPN’s work on climate change; there was no “split” between the members of the organisations." She adds that she has never felt inhibited from promoting certain views because of her family connections and she points out that, although her father, Sir Antony Fisher, indirectly influenced the creation of a large number of think tanks, he set up fewer than 10 himself.
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D1Baseball Top 25: April 3
• What We Learned: Week Seven
• Weekly Ouch List
• Chat Transcript
Oregon State remained No. 1 in the D1Baseball Top 25 rankings for the third straight week after sweeping a road series at then-No. 11 Stanford. The Beavers have won 19 games in a row and own a 24-1 overall record to go along with a perfect 9-0 mark in Pac-12 play.
Louisville stayed No. 2 after winning a road series at Virginia, and TCU moved up a spot to No. 3 after sweeping its second straight conference series. Clemson also climbed one spot to No. 4 after winning a road series at Georgia Tech, and fellow ACC power North Carolina moved into the top five for the first time this season after sweeping a road series at Florida State for the first time ever.
Other big climbers this week include Kentucky and Arizona. UK vaulted eight spots to No. 8 after taking two of three from Vanderbilt, giving the Wildcats three straight quality series wins (they also took two of three at Texas A&M and swept Ole Miss). Arizona bounced back from getting swept at Oregon State last week with a sweep of its own, at home against Southern California, helping it return to the top 10 at No. 9.
Auburn jumped six spots to No. 11 after taking two of three from South Carolina, which fell five spots to No. 12. Arkansas moved up five spots to No. 15 after winning its second straight SEC road series, and Oklahoma leapt eight spots to No. 16 after winning two of three from Texas Tech, which fell three spots to No. 6. Southern Miss also made a big move, climbing eight places to No. 17 after a 5-0 week.
Stanford and Florida State tumbled 10 spots apiece to No. 21 and No. 22, respectively, after both got swept at home. Ole Miss and UL Lafayette fell out of the rankings after both posted losing records for the second week in a row, though the Cajuns did win their weekend series against South Alabama.
Wake Forest entered the rankings for the first time this season at No. 23 after winning its first-ever road series at Miami. Maryland also returned to the Top 25 following a sweep of Rutgers. The Terps check in at No. 24.
D1Baseball editors Aaron Fitt and Kendall Rogers determine the Top 25 rankings. Records are through games of April 2.
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We joke a lot about Steven Stamkos signing with the Toronto Maple Leafs on here, but our sarcasm doesn’t come without a foundation. The superstar Toronto-area native has less than 200 days remaining on his contract, and not a word has been revealed about him and the Tampa Bay Lightning making progress.
Alas, most of the major media have been too shy to commit themselves to the belief that Toronto is an option, rather than a pipe dream. Nik Kypreos broke character today, suggesting that this may be possible after all, and could even involve some dirty work.
“I’m starting to think now [that] there’s a better chance at Stamkos being a Leaf than I probably would have thought a few months ago.” said Kypreos on Hockey Central at noon today. “I don’t think that Tampa can offer him the same money that the Leafs can.”
What was fascinating, however, was Kypreos’ suggestion that the Leafs might think beyond the salary cap and use the corporate partners surrounding them to get him some additional income.
“It doesn’t make sense for him to suck that much of your team cap and expect to have a good team around him,” said Kypreos when suggested that Stamkos could ask for the projected $14.8M league max. “So they offer him $11, and they guarantee him $5-6M corporately. You get your corporate partners and get them to buck up. It’s happening already.”
Kypreos cited Connor McDavid’s Rogers deal (which pairs him with former Oiler Mark Messier) as an example of how the process could theoretically work. The deal, along with other endorsements, makes McDavid the highest paid rookie in the league.
Looking at just MLSE-related assets first, the Leafs would have more difficulty blatantly cheating the system now than they would have a few years ago. Besides the fact that the NHL is becoming increasingly vigilant at tracking Salary Cap Circumvention, the current ownership group of Bell Canada, Rogers Communications, and Larry Tanenbaum is worth tens of billions of dollars, not many of their assets are “endorsement deal” quality.
Beyond sports teams, Tanenbaum’s assets primarily revolve around trade work companies that take on hefty contracts, and thus wouldn’t benefit in having a spokesperson. Bell and Rogers own a lot of services, but most of them are TV Channels, Newspapers, Magazines, and Radio Stations. That’s great if Stamkos and his agent ever need to manipulate the public perception of themselves, but unless he plans on getting rich off of “I’m Steven Stamkos, and you’re listening to Sault Ste. Marie’s EZ Rock”, there’s not much further they can help out beyond their parent companies.
That doesn’t make it a lost cause; Bell could use a spokesperson to counter Rogers’ McDavid and Messier, and could make him a retail presence as the face of The Source, which they bought from Circuit City (and before that, Radio Shack) a few years back.
It’s a far cry from the asset presence that the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan had. Their partial investments would have opened avenues anywhere from tech (Microsoft, Google, Samsung, Western Digital, Nokia), to Automotive (Nissan, GM, Volkswagen, Daimler), to other big name companies (Amazon, The Bay, Disney). But it’s still a start.
The Leafs could also use their corporate sponsors to their advantage, which would tap into a seemingly endless list that includes Canadian Tire, Ford, Blackberry, Air Canada, Scotiabank, Coca-Cola, Molson-Coors, BMO, Cisco, and Under Armour, and dozens more. Kypreos used Tim Hortons as his example, but they’re not as tied in with MLSE as the previously mentioned companies and already have Sidney Crosby and Nathan MacKinnon on board.
Of course, there will be a lot of debate as to whether using indirect sponsorship is a fair way to acquire players, given the Salary Cap’s intention of creating a competitive balance. I can’t see either side of the debate raising their voices too loud, however; if the Leafs (or another team) still pay him market value (probably somewhere around Ovechkin and Malkin’s 9.5 million to Toews and Kane’s 10.5 million). From there, they would use the bonuses as a “topper” of sorts, a topper that’s merely hinted at (and eventually delivered) rather than guaranteed, there won’t be much of a case. We’re not talking about the Leafs paying him $2M and Virgin Mobile paying him $20M; that would, of course, be ridiculous and both upset other GMs and send the Players Association into a meltdown.
None of this matters if Stamkos doesn’t feel that going home is the best option for him, but if he likes the direction the team is going from a hockey standpoint, it’ll be hard to reject the highest paying option, even if it’s not as direct about the paycheque process.
As far as the process goes, though, it’s about getting a sellable asset into a place that will buy into them. “When you’ve got leverage in big markets like Toronto and Vancouver, and you can get your corporate world to say ‘I can’t pay him, but you can, and that may be another way that he stays in our market, and you win, we win, its a win-win for everybody, including any athlete’, that’s not circumventing anything. That’s using your corporate world around you.”
Indeed, July 1st can’t come soon enough.
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Why Parents Target a Specific Child for Abuse
by Darlene Barriere - Webmaster
(Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada)
[Article originally posted October 2007 issue Barriere Bits E-zine]
Research into target-child selection, a term that is sometimes used to describe incidences where a parent singles out one child for abuse, is extremely limited. This is due partly to the fact that child abuse continues to be under-reported, and partly because target-child selection is often unidentified even though it may be present.
low self-esteem
poor impulse control
low frustration tolerance
inappropriate expression of anger
impaired parenting skills
inadequate coping skills
tendency for role reversal (i.e. child takes care of parent)
tendency to shift responsibility onto others
depression and other mental health problems
inadequate knowledge of child developmental stages
preconception that child's behaviour is stressful
anti-social behaviours (but not always)
self-expressed anger
feelings of inadequacy
feelings of incompetence
unrealistic expectations
the parent abuses alcohol, drugs or other substances
post-partum depression
a history of child abuse in their own childhood
a history in their own childhood of inappropriate teachings of discipline for specific wrongdoings
social isolation
poor coping skills
a hatred of one gender over another
belief that a boy should be raised differently, in some cases, with more brutality and physically inappropriate discipline than a girl
the child is viewed as "difficult" or "won't listen" or "different" hyperactive or inactive
fussy
difficult to feed
abnormal sleep patterns
excessive crying
difficult temperament
unresponsive to parents' efforts
child is seen as "unattractive" and/or "flawed" in a physical way, such as with disability or disfigurement
too passive
too strong-willed
failure to attach (bond) with the child
adopted
adolescents
the child is viewed as an adversary (a mother might see her daughter as competition for her husband's attention; a father might see in his daughter a trait he dislikes in his wife and view her as an enemy)
the child is viewed as being "spoiled" by the other parent – in these cases, the abusive parent justifies the maltreatment of that child as "making up" for the perceived lack of discipline imposed on that child
the parent dislikes certain personality traits and quirks that the child exhibits, especially if these traits are seen as mimicking someone the parent is either suspicious of or has a particular aversion to (an estranged or abusive spouse, for example)
the parent dislikes the fact that the child resembles in looks, someone the parent feels loathing toward (a spouse who has been unfaithful, for example)
the parent is jealous of the child's looks, mannerisms, character, ability to get attention, etc., then subsequently punishes the child for those perceived "misdeeds"
the child was a product of infidelity, incest, sexual assault, or an otherwise unwanted pregnancy
the pregnancy or delivery was difficult
child was born during period of extreme stress and crises
disappointment that the boy-child wasn't a girl, or the girl-child wasn't a boy
child is seen as "abnormal" born significantly premature
small for gestational age
congenital problems
autistic
born with a disability or disfigurement
acute or chronic illnesses
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Some researchers attribute this targeting to stress levels, and often times, substance abuse. Others cite a history of abuse in the parent's childhood. While these attributions may explain child abuse in general, they do not adequately explain why a parent would single out a particular child.There are professionals in the field who believe the answer to this targeting question lies in the misguided perception of one child: that abuse of siblings, for one reason or another, is simply not recognized by the child who believes that he or she was singled out. But growing evidence does not support this. More and more cases of child targeting are being discovered. Not through children or adults speaking out about their experiences; rather, through the investigations conducted by authorities after child abuse is reported.One of the most infamous cases of a parent singling out a child for abuse is that of Dave Pelzer, author of several books, includingDave suffered years of abuse at the hands of his mother, and she repeatedly tried to kill him. He was 12 years old before he was rescued by teachers who finally reported the abuse to Social Services. At the time (1973), Dave's case was considered the worse case of child abuse in the history of California. None of his brothers were abused. And even if one wanted to argue that the other boys in the family had been abused, the physical evidence unmistakably showed that Dave was singled out.There are many other cases. Take the recently publicized case of a 13-year-old Houston, Texas boy, who was so badly neglected that he currently weighs only 72 pounds. He is reportedly so small that he looks more like a 7-year-old than a teenager. His mother and stepfather are said to have kept him locked in an attic or in a closet. There is no doubt that they starved him. Investigators found none of the couple's five children had been in a school in two years, but only the 13-year-old boy had been abused. Old and new scars, healed burns and possible bite scars were found on the boy. Neighbours were aware of the boy's 4 siblings, but did not know the 13-year-old existed. While all of the children were neglected in some way, the teenage boy was singled out for torturous physical abuse and severe neglect that almost led to his death. At the time of this writing, the parents were still in jail.We can only speculate why both his biological mother and stepfather targeted this boy. But even speculation has its basis in fact. So what are the facts?We know that some children are more at risk for abuse than others. A child with poor cognitive skills and who exhibits behavioural problems is at significant risk for child abuse. Other risk factors for children and youth include their sexual orientation and a disability. Children who have a dependency for personal care for such disabilities as the inability to see, hear, move, communicate, dress, toilet or bathe themselves independently are more vulnerable to rough, careless or intrusive care, or neglect of their personal needs.An American study found that parents are almost twice as likely to abuse a child with a disability as without a disability. Other studies reveal that people with disability are up to 5 times more likely to be abused than the general population.By and large, society has no problem accepting that fathers are capable of harming their children. Men have had to deal with this unfounded societal bias since the beginning of time. There is a preconception that because boys are more physical and display anger more readily, they are somehow predisposed to violence against children when they become adults. But statistics reflect thatuse physical abuse more than men. Society as a whole has difficulty wrapping their minds around this statistic. If society accepts that women, the caregivers and nurturers, are capable of physically harming their children, then it undermines the very coreof our belief system.Facts are facts: Both menwomen are capable of maliciously and fatally abusing one or more of their children.What do we know about abusive parents?An abusive parent is a person who misuses his or her power. If parenting becomes overwhelming and support systems are insufficient, there is a much higher likelihood for becoming a child abuser. Some adults are more prone to becoming abusive due to their histories, their psychological make up, and their behavioural characteristics. Biological factors also enter into the equation. An abusive parent tends to have:There are a multitude of reasons a parent might target a specific child for abuse:It is important to note here that the above reasons and examples in no way provide an excuse for parents to abuse a child. They clearly denote mental health issues that must be addressed.To summarize, parenting is never easy, and being a parent does not immunize a person from harming a child, even when that child is biologically theirs. When a child does not meet expectations, the parent may become more abusive toward that child. The parent may show greater irritation and annoyance to one specific child's moods and behaviours, and may be more controlling and hostile toward that child, and subsequently vent their frustrations on that child.Parents who target one child for abuse have convoluted ideas about who and what that child is, as well as what is and isn't appropriate discipline and parental behaviour. Some children by virtue of who they are, what they look like, and the circumstances of their being are more vulnerable for abuse than other children. When these realities are combined, it is a recipe for malicious and sometimes fatal child abuse.
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Indiana's Thomas Marshall, who was America's vice president 100 years ago, voiced — he plucked it from a Hoosier humorist — one of the few long-remembered utterances to issue from that office: "What this country needs is a good 5-cent cigar," which would be $1.11 in today's currency. A century later, what the country needs is a $12 twelve-ounce cup of coffee.
Or so Howard Schultz thinks. Betting against the man who built Starbucks (SBUX) to a market capitalization of $86 billion is imprudent.
Today, you cannot swing a dead cat without hitting a Starbucks store. There are 25,000 in 75 countries, with another 12,000 due by 2021, so Starbucks is not an elusive or exclusive experience. This poses a problem peculiar to affluent societies, and an opportunity. Seattle, where the original Starbucks was opened in 1971, now has a Starbucks Roastery where customers can turn a cup of "small-batch" coffee into an experience — Starbucks sells experiences as much as coffee — of both conspicuous consumption and conspicuous connoisseurship. Bloomberg reports that for a pittance, aka $10, skinflints will be able to buy a cold-brew coffee, which presumably is an excellent thing, infused with nitrogen gas, which sounds like an acquired taste.
Many existing Starbucks are located to capture foot traffic in malls and shopping centers, which have been losing customers to online shopping. The original 30 Roasteries — Reuters says they will be "ultra-premium," not mere tacky premium — will be destinations where people will go to linger. So, by 2021, when there will be more normal Starbucks than McDonald's, the few Starbucks Roasteries scattered from New York to Shanghai will be Starbucks' entry into the positional economy.
Very pricey coffee is just a fresh-brewed variation on the familiar phenomenon of positional goods. They are necessarily, inherently enjoyments for the few. They exist because, particularly in the upper reaches of affluent societies, it is not love that makes the world go 'round, it is a compound of envy and pretentiousness.
Four decades ago, the economist Fred Hirsch distinguished between the material economy and the positional economy. Once a society has satisfied basic material needs (food, shelter, clothing), it turns yesterday's luxuries (cars, air conditioning, college educations) into necessities. Because these are mass-market commodities, such material prosperity is a leveling, egalitarian force. Positional competition is emphatically not.
In the competition for an "elite" education or an "exclusive" vacation spot, one person's success is necessarily a loss for many other persons because positional goods cannot be expanded indefinitely. Of course, Starbucks Roasteries could be expanded by the thousands, but this would make the "experience" banal and drain the stores of their positional power.
After elementary needs — food, shelter, clothing — are satisfied, consumption nevertheless continues, indeed it intensifies because desires are potentially infinite. People compare themselves to their neighbors, envy their neighbors' advantages, and strive to vault ahead in the envy-ostentation sweepstakes.
The political equality of democratic societies leaves ample room for, and incites, social inequalities, which are coveted because they counter the leveling forces of mass affluence. Furthermore, as inherited privilege has been replaced by social rationality — Napoleon's "careers open to talents," a meritocracy based on skills and education — there is a residual human urge for irrational distinction. Such as savoring a $12 cup not just for the — let us stipulate — divine flavor but for the sheer fun of showing that you can and that your palate is so refined that merely very good coffee would be excruciating.
In any American city large enough to sustain a social ecosystem of snobbery, there is a magazine to guide fastidious consumers to "the five best craft breweries" or "the five best artisanal cheese shops." Heaven forfend that anyone should have to settle for the sixth best. For discerning tipplers, there are artisanal ice cubes. In San Francisco, The Mill, a cafe and bakery, offers artisanal toast for $4 a slice. It is to die for, say the cognoscenti.
Where will the positional economy end? It won't. Stanford professor Francis Fukuyama notes that it is a peculiarity of humans that they desire some things "not for themselves but because they are desired by other humans." Hamsters have more sense. This characteristic of our species — the quest for recognition by distinguishing oneself from others — provides limitless marketing possibilities because for many wealthy people, "the chief enjoyment of riches consists in the parade of riches." So wrote Adam Smith in "The Wealth of Nations," published in the resonant year of 1776.
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So how big is it, exactly? Well, according to our best estimates, the supermassive black hole is roughly 21 billion times the size of the Sun, and its event horizon (an area so dense and powerful that light can’t escape its gravity) measures 130 billion kilometers in diameter. That’s about 15 times the diameter of Neptune’s orbit around the Sun, according to scientists at the Hubble Space Telescope. At one point, the black hole was fueling itself on a process called hot accretion. Space stuff like gases, dust, and galactic debris fell towards the black hole and created an accretion disk. Then that spinning disk of space junk, accelerated by the strong gravitational pull of the largest known black hole, emitted huge jets of energy out into the galaxy.
During that active period, NGC 4889 would have classified as a quasar (quasi-stellar radio source) thanks to the black hole’s emissions of up to a thousand times more energy than our Milky Way galaxy. But the black hole is now in dormant mode because there isn’t any more sustenance stored in the orbiting accretion disk. “The accretion disk sustained the supermassive black hole’s appetite until the nearby supply of galactic material was exhausted. Now, napping quietly as it waits for its next celestial snack, the supermassive black hole is dormant”, says the Hubble Space Telescope website.
Of course, the announcement posted with new photos of the NGC 4889 galaxy is quick to point out that the pictures don’t exactly capture the likeness of the supermassive black hole. It is impossible to observe a black hole directly, but scientists have been able to identify the implied presence of a black hole by analyzing the way celestial objects interact with some invisible force. For this particular black hole in the NGC 4889 galaxy, scientists used instruments on the Keck II Observatory and the Gemini North Telescope to measure the velocity of stars moving around the center point of the galaxy. The stars’ specific velocities re what allowed scientists to calculate the incredible size of NGC 4889’s black hole.
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UC Irvine Athletics Universities are among the biggest employers in some states. (Pictured: UC Irvine’s mascot Peter the Anteater)
If you are in the market for a job and you don’t know where to start, this map might come in handy.
Olivet Nazarene University earlier this month published an infographic that showed who employed the most people in each state. Their data showed that retailers, universities and healthcare companies were among the biggest employers.
“Here in the United States of America, many of us are told that we can be whatever we want to be. But do you ever wonder what most of us end up becoming? Where do most Americans work — in business, healthcare, manufacturing or retail? And for whom?” the university said in a report.
The Bourbonnais, Illinois-based university set out to answer those questions and concluded that there are distinct regional trends.
The West Coast and the Northwest were more diverse, with the largest employers varying from the University of California in California to MGM Grand MGM, -0.07% in Nevada and Boeing Co. BA, -0.02% in Washington. On the East Coast, healthcare dominated in Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. The military was also a big employer in several states, including Hawaii and Alaska.
But in terms of footprint, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. WMT, -0.43% dominates the map. The retailer had 850,000 people on its payroll across 19 states — many of them in the South. This number is likely to swell given the retailer’s plan to create another 10,000 jobs this year.
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Fewer Foreclosures Now. More Foreclosures Later.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
The number of homes in foreclosure fell sharply in the first half of this year. But that doesn't mean the housing market is getting better.
It just means the foreclosure process has stalled as lenders and state attorneys general try to work out a settlement over the robosigning scandal.
And it means that a million or so foreclosures that would have happened this year will be pushed back into next year, according to the mid-year foreclosure report RealtyTrac released today.
In the first half of this year, 1.2 million homes were in foreclosure, a decline of 29 percent from the first half of last year.
There are an additional 3 million homeowners who haven't paid their mortgage for more than two months — but who are not yet in foreclosure. Historically, most people who are that far behind on their mortgage wind up in foreclosure, RealtyTrac VP Rick Sharga told me.
Foreclosed homes put downward pressure on home prices (they typically sell for a big discount) and reduce demand for newly built homes.
So the slowdown in foreclosures in the first half of this year, combined with the overhang of delinquent mortgages, "will delay the housing market recovery ... until 2015 or even later," Sharga said.
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In the days following the approval of a proposal to expand the role of Undergraduate Learning Assistants in the Computer Science Department, professors and students have expressed overwhelming enthusiasm for the decision, though much work still remains to be done to ensure the quality of the incoming ULAs.
ULAs, who could initially only be employed in CPSC 100, commonly known as CS50, this past fall, may now work in any undergraduate computer science course. Still, not all computer science classes will have ULAs, since individual professors have the option of whether to hire ULAs for their classes or to continue working with peer tutors and graders. Computer science professors and students interviewed agreed that the expansion is necessary, given the department’s rapidly growing undergraduate interest and small number of graduate students who serve as teaching fellows. But professors noted that the CS50 ULAs had to undergo significant training sessions, and incoming ULAs for other courses may need similarly rigorous preparation.
“The more student contact you have, the more training is required. ULAs are trained not just about the rules, but also about how to be effective teachers,” said computer science professor Brian Scassellati, who taught CS50 in the fall. “You need to spend time training if you want good ULAs.”
Still, computer science professor Daniel Abadi, who is in charge of training graduate-student teaching fellows, noted that though the specifics for training have not yet been finalized, the training for assistants working in other department courses will probably be “a little bit less intense” than the CS50 ULA training.
Abadi added that the department is planning to meet with the Yale Center for Teaching and Learning in the upcoming weeks to finalize a training plan and determine how the application process for ULA positions will work.
ULAs were first approved by the faculty in November 2014 to teach in CS50, a course that relies on a strong undergraduate teaching presence. Before the approval, undergraduate students could serve only as peer tutors or graders — either holding office hours or grading assignments, but never both. Course evaluations for the fall of 2015 showed positive feedback about the new undergraduate teaching system, which offers a more structured support system.
CS50 Course Head Jason Hirschhorn said that based on his experience in CS50, he sees a demand for even more quality student teachers to help them with their coursework.
“Our department is understaffed and to get the optimal teaching outcomes for the students in our department we need a bigger teaching staff,” Abadi said. “Peer tutors and graders are nice programs but they don’t have the full, 360 view of the student that the ULAs will have.”
Scassellati said peer tutors are meant to help individual students, whereas ULAs have to deal with a whole class of 30 to 100 students and answer any of their questions. It is a whole different level of commitment, he said.
Students noted that ULAs are often more approachable than regular teaching assistants, who are typically graduate students.
“I think this can actually be great for the department because I think there will be less intimidation for some people when talking with an undergrad than a grad,” computer science major Yehia Saleh ’18 said. “Also, the fact that the TAs are in the same stage as other undergrads [means] they can tell the students about their experiences and internships, which is a huge plus.”
Other students also praised the structure and seriousness of the ULA system, compared to the peer tutor structure.
David McPeek ’17, a CS50 ULA this fall, said he was drawn to the program because it offers more formal training compared to the peer tutoring system. For CS50, students had to undergo more than 40 hours of training sessions before they could take to the classrooms.
“The reason why I think this would work is because being a ULA requires a level of commitment and seriousness that attracts a lot of people. I really identified with the role and it became my main extracurricular activity,” McPeek said. “I feel a deep sense of responsibility as a ULA, whereas the peer tutor role is more of a student job.”
The Computer Science Department is aware that the policies could also be a future template for use in other departments.
During the computer science town hall hosted last week to discuss the current state of the department, Scassellati noted that the department was the “cutting edge” of the Yale campus in terms of involving undergraduate students in teaching roles.
“With CS50, we are the prototype and test case for how this is going to work in the future,” Scassellati said. “It is worth us putting time and energy because it could get replicated across the University whatever we end up doing.”
CS50 ULAs are trained in the spring semester in preparation for the fall term.
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Renato Sanches to Swansea unlikely after Paul Clement uses Bayern contacts in audacious move
Renato Sanches has been told he can leave Bayern Munich this summer
Bayern Munich midfielder Renato Sanches is unlikely to move to Swansea City before the transfer deadline, according to Sky sources.
The Swans made an audacious bid to sign the Portugal international earlier this summer via boss Paul Clement's links to his former Bundesliga club.
Sky Sports News understands Clement spoke to Carlo Ancelotti, to whom he was assistant at Bayern before taking the job at the Liberty Stadium, about the player's availability.
Paul Clement wants improvements despite beating Crystal Palace Paul Clement wants improvements despite beating Crystal Palace
But Sky in Italy understand that Liverpool are one of a number of clubs including Monaco interested in taking him from Germany, and his agent Jorge Mendes was at a Monaco over the weekend.
Ancelotti has said the 20-year old can leave Bayern on loan despite having signed him from Benfica for £28m only last year, and Clement has been keen to fill the void left by Gylfi Sigurdsson's departure to Everton.
Bild in Germany reported that Liverpool were the favourites to sign Sanches on loan before Thursday's deadline.
However, Sky sources understand although the Reds made several inquiries about his availability earlier in the window, they have since dropped their interest in the player.
Chelsea head coach Antonio Conte personally enquired about Renato Sanches earlier this month.
Sanches asked to be left out of the side's Bundesliga squad last weekend as he looks to resolve his future.
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There’s something exciting about crossing the boundary between the abstract world of software and the physical ‘real world’, and a relay driven from a GPIO pin seemed like a good example of this. Although a simple project, I still learned some new things about the Raspberry Pi while doing it.
There are only four components required, and the cost for these is around 70p, so it would be a good candidate for a classroom exercise. Even a cheap relay like the Omron G5LA-1 5DC can switch loads of 10A at 240V.
A word of caution: don’t tinker with mains voltages unless you’re really (really) sure about what you’re doing. A mechanical relay allows a safe learning environment, since you can switch any load with it (e.g. a 9V DC battery/bulb circuit for testing), and the concept of a mechanical switch is very easy to grasp. A more efficient alternative to switch an AC load would be to use a solid-state relay (e.g. opto-coupled Triac), but it’s quite easy to make a wrong assumption and blow everything up with a loud bang and a big spark. I recommend sticking with mechanical relays until you’re entirely sure about what you’re doing. Tip: you can buy plug-in low-voltage AC power-supplies if you want to play with triacs.
The Circuit
There are four components to this circuit. A relay (5V DC coil), a BC337 NPN transistor, a diode, and 1K resistor. Essentially, the transistor is used to energise the relay’s coil with the required voltage and current.
A relay will often have 3 significant voltage/current ratings specified; coil, AC load, and DC load. The most important to our circuit is the coil rating, which is the current at a specified voltage required to energise the coil (activate the switch), sometimes expressed as milliwatts (mW).
The AC and DC load ratings relate to the switch-contacts, and state the maximum load current (e.g. for your lamp, motor, etc.) that can be carried at the given AC and DC voltages. DC loads are rated lower because they arc (spark) more, which eventually wears the contacts to the point of failure. In general, large loads need heavier contacts, which in turn need bigger coils to switch them, and bigger coils need more power from your circuit.
Relays sometimes don’t fit easily onto a breadboard, so you might want to build the circuit on veroboard instead, or just mount the relay on veroboard and add two pins for the coil contacts (allowing you to breadboard it). Don’t ever put AC mains into your breadboard!
The GPIO pin used in the example code is GPIO_17, which appears on pin 11 of the Raspberry Pi’s 26-pin expansion header (opposite GPIO_18 (PCM_CLK) and beside GPIO_21 (PCM_DOUT)). The choice of GPIO 17 was simply because I considered it less likely to conflict with other peripherals likely to be in use.
Although the pin is marked 3.3V on the schematic, don’t confuse this with the 3V3 pin – I labelled it with the voltage to highlight that a 3.3V GPIO pin is driving a 5V load – it could also drive a 24V coil, for example, if an appropriate DC power supply is used rather than the Raspi’s 5V line.
Essentially, to activate the relay, all the circuit does is send a few milliamps at 3.3V from the GPIO pin, through a 1K resistor (you may choose to increase this to 1.2K if you want to be strictly below 3mA). This current is enough to saturate the BC337 transistor, causing current to flow on the 5V rail through the transistor, and therefore also through the relay’s coil.
Most general purpose NPN transistors with an minimum hFE of say 50 to 100 could be used in place of the BC337 – it will depend on a) how much current you’re willing to draw from the GPIO pin, b) how much current is required to energise the relay’s coil, c) the actual hFE of the transistor in your hand, since they vary wildly and the current gain could easily be significantly more than the stated minimum.
The diode in the circuit is there to conduct the current generated by the de-energising coil back across the coil (e.g. when switched off), allowing the power to dissipate more gradually, avoiding a voltage spike.
Take care to orient the diode correctly, or you’ll short 5V to ground via the transistor when the GPIO is high. Similarly, take care to correctly identify the collector, base, and emitter pins on your transistor. The pin ordering varies by type, so check the datasheet. I’d recommend you double check these two components before powering up.
The breadboard photo shows it wired up. The pin numbering on my IDC plug should be though of from above the connector, to make it correspond with the 26-pin header numbering. Blue is 5V, and brown is Ground. The green wire connects from GPIO 17 (pin 11 on the Raspi’s 26-pin header) to the transistor base via resistor R1.
You can test that the relay is working by disconnecting the wire from GPIO 17 (pin 11 of the 26-pin header) and touching it to 3V3 (pin 1). You should hear a click as you connect/disconnect 3V3. Make sure you keep the resistor in the circuit (e.g. don’t just take a wire from 3V3 to the transistor’s base pin).
Note that the circuit assumes the GPIO pin will be configured as an output. If it’s likely to also spend some time as an input, then a resistor (10K would do) between the base and ground would ensure the transistor is fully off, rather than having a floating voltage applied.
Using the relay via the ‘/sys’ filesystem
Enable GPIO 17 access via the Kernel on path ‘/sys/class/gpio/’, and configure it as an output pin: –
echo "17" > /sys/class/gpio/export echo "out" > /sys/class/gpio/gpio17/direction
View the current state of GPIO 17: –
cat /sys/class/gpio/gpio17/value
Set the state of GPIO 17 by writing “1” for high (relay on) and “0” for low (relay off): –
echo "1" > /sys/class/gpio/gpio17/value echo "0" > /sys/class/gpio/gpio17/value
Finally, to use the C code instead, remove the pin from the control of the Kernel driver: –
echo "17" > /sys/class/gpio/unexport
The C Code Alternative
The C source code below shows how to drive the relay using the GPIO peripheral’s hardware registers. It’s all in one file for simplicity and for clarity, though there’s not much to it.
The usleep(1) call has been used to create a short delay before reading the LEVn register to feed back the pin status. This is because the rise time for a GPIO pin (the time for the voltage on the pin to rise to a level that’s considered ‘high’) is around 100ns to 3V. The ‘high’ threshold is probably less than half that, but even if it’s 30ns, that’s 21 ARM clock cycles at 700MHz, and is enough time to read the LEVn register before it has transitioned.
/* * gpio_relay.c - example of driving a relay using the GPIO peripheral on a BCM2835 (Raspberry Pi) * * Copyright 2012 Kevin Sangeelee. * Released as GPLv2, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/> * * This is intended as an example of using Raspberry Pi hardware registers to drive a relay using GPIO. Use at your own * risk or not at all. As far as possible, I've omitted anything that doesn't relate to the Raspi registers. There are more * conventional ways of doing this using kernel drivers. */ #include <stdio.h> #include <fcntl.h> #include <sys/mman.h> #define IOBASE 0x20000000 #define GPIO_BASE (IOBASE + 0x200000) #define GPFSEL0 *(gpio.addr + 0) #define GPFSEL1 *(gpio.addr + 1) #define GPFSEL2 *(gpio.addr + 2) #define GPFSEL3 *(gpio.addr + 3) #define GPFSEL4 *(gpio.addr + 4) #define GPFSEL5 *(gpio.addr + 5) // Reserved @ word offset 6 #define GPSET0 *(gpio.addr + 7) #define GPSET1 *(gpio.addr + 8) // Reserved @ word offset 9 #define GPCLR0 *(gpio.addr + 10) #define GPCLR1 *(gpio.addr + 11) // Reserved @ word offset 12 #define GPLEV0 *(gpio.addr + 13) #define GPLEV1 *(gpio.addr + 14) #define BIT_17 (1 << 17) #define PAGESIZE 4096 #define BLOCK_SIZE 4096 struct bcm2835_peripheral { unsigned long addr_p; int mem_fd; void *map; volatile unsigned int *addr; }; struct bcm2835_peripheral gpio = {GPIO_BASE}; // Some forward declarations... int map_peripheral(struct bcm2835_peripheral *p); void unmap_peripheral(struct bcm2835_peripheral *p); int gpio_state = -1; //////////////// // main() //////////////// int main(int argc, char *argv[]) { if(argc == 2) { if(!strcmp(argv[1], "on")) gpio_state = 1; if(!strcmp(argv[1], "off")) gpio_state = 0; } if(map_peripheral(&gpio) == -1) { printf("Failed to map the physical GPIO registers into the virtual memory space.
"); return -1; } /* Set GPIO 17 as an output pin */ GPFSEL1 &= ~(7 << 21); // Mask out bits 23-21 of GPFSEL1 (i.e. force to zero) GPFSEL1 |= (1 << 21); // Set bits 23-21 of GPFSEL1 to binary '001' if(gpio_state == 0) GPCLR0 = BIT_17; else if(gpio_state == 1) GPSET0 = BIT_17; usleep(1); // Delay to allow any change in state to be reflected in the LEVn, register bit. printf("GPIO 17 is %s
", (GPLEV0 & BIT_17) ? "high" : "low"); unmap_peripheral(&gpio); // Done! } // Exposes the physical address defined in the passed structure using mmap on /dev/mem int map_peripheral(struct bcm2835_peripheral *p) { // Open /dev/mem if ((p->mem_fd = open("/dev/mem", O_RDWR|O_SYNC) ) < 0) { printf("Failed to open /dev/mem, try checking permissions.
"); return -1; } p->map = mmap( NULL, BLOCK_SIZE, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, MAP_SHARED, p->mem_fd, // File descriptor to physical memory virtual file '/dev/mem' p->addr_p // Address in physical map that we want this memory block to expose ); if (p->map == MAP_FAILED) { perror("mmap"); return -1; } p->addr = (volatile unsigned int *)p->map; return 0; } void unmap_peripheral(struct bcm2835_peripheral *p) { munmap(p->map, BLOCK_SIZE); close(p->mem_fd); }
The code can be compiled and run with
root@pi:~# gcc -o gpio_relay gpio_relay.c root@pi:~# ./gpio_relay on GPIO 17 is high root@pi:~# ./gpio_relay off GPIO 17 is low
Note: there was an error in the original example code, where it was initialising GPFSEL0 rather than GPFSEL1. If the pin fails to go high, maybe you’ve got the original code.
References
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How do you stay fit visiting a city with such rich food? New Orleans attracts many visitors because of it’s traditional rich food. It offers a huge variety of really good places for eating out and some of these recipes have been around for well over a 100 years, making the dining experience in the city a walk back through history.
As culinary heritage goes, you can taste a truly amazing mix of old and new while visiting New Orleans. The food here has been influenced by many cultures and as such is a melting pot between French, Cajun, Creole, Spanish, African and Caribbean. It is also very much a reflection of the Catholic heritage; after all New Orleans is the birthplace of Sunday brunch, invented for the churchgoers leaving en-masse on Sundays.
Undoubtedly you can have an amazing time, tasting the delicacies that New Orleans has to offer. However the rich and tempting food and all the restaurant hopping can also make you feel less likely to experience the rest of the life in the city. That’s why a free walking tour can be a great way to enjoy the best of both worlds.
Staying active while visiting a city is a great way to avoid ‘travel fatigue’ and be in top shape while enjoying your holidays. Like in many other cities around the world, free walking tours are becoming a very popular way for travelers to combine exploring their destination and also to get a bit of essential exercise while doing it.
When we are on holiday we tend to get out of our usual fitness routine and sometimes to overindulge in eating and drinking. It’s not always easy to find the best place to do your usual workouts when you are on unfamiliar ground and you are also keen to pack your schedule with all the places that you want to visit. Here’s where a free walking tour such as the one offered by the David G. Hedges aka The Nola Tour Guy, can be a great alternative to any overpriced walking tour that you might do as a tourist. It will give you a good dose of culture and history as well as allow you to include some needed dose of physical activity into your day.
David moved to New Orleans after graduating from college and has truly embraced the unique energy of the city. His aim is to share his passion for New Orleans and its many dynamic and multifaceted layers with all the people who join the free tours that he organizes. His tours are not like the mass crowded ones that most tourists have to endure. David’s main objective is to make them fun, engaging and to captivate his audience with his good humor and his never-ending excitement about walking the streets of New Orleans drenched in history and tradition.
You will certainly have an activity filled couple of hours if you decide to join the Nola Tour Guy . And if you decide to treat yourself to a tasty Gumbo, Jambalaya or rice and red beans with a Sazerac or two, then at least your treat will be well deserved after the brisk walking around the city.
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The Galaxy J3 (2017) welcomes company - the 5.5 Galaxy J7 (2017) and the 5.2 Galaxy J5 (2017). All of them run Android 7.0 Nougat with Samsung's custom UI on top.
Note that Samsung seems to have jumped the gun with this announcement, the J5 and J7 are not up on the company site yet (well, not where they should be, anyway).
The Samsung Galaxy J7 (2017) boasts splash resistance (IP54), which the other two lack. Its also the only one with a 1080p screen (5.5), though the whole family comes with Super AMOLED panels. Plus, it uses a modern USB-C port (the other two have microUSB).
Beyond that, there are many similarities within the new J series. They stick to the Galaxy S7-like design (no S8 Infinity display magic). Both the J7 and J5 have a fingerprint reading Home keys below their screens, 5.2 720p for the J5.
Samsung Galaxy J7 (2017) in Black and in Gold
The main cameras are identical, 13MP main camera with 1080p video capture and a bright f/1.9 aperture. For selfies, you get an impressive 13MP camera with its own flash.
Processing power is similar, both are based on the Exynos 7870 chipset (14nm, 8x A53, Mali-T830 MP2) and both have 16GB of storage. However, the J7 has 3GB of RAM while the J5 only has 2GB. Battery capacity differs as well, 3,600mAh and 3,000mAh respectively.
The Galaxy J5 (2017) will come first (by the end of the month) at 280 while the Galaxy J7 (2017) should launch in July for 340.
The Galaxy J3 (2017) is already available on AT&T, but its coming to Europe in August. Curiously, it comes with a different design (the back) and slightly different specs. It should cost 220. It has a 5 720p Super AMOLED screen, quad-core processor, but the Euro model is much better specced than the AT&T one (it's practically a different phone). You get a 13MP f/1.9 main camera (vs. 5MP) with a 13MP selfie with flash (vs. 2MP), slightly more RAM (2GB vs. 1.5GB), NFC, a slightly smaller battery (2,400mAh vs. 2,600mAh).
Via (in Dutch)
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Simon James Lucas, the owner of Bridgnorth Delicatessen, sent 112 parcels via a Royal Mail online account but underpaid the postage by printing off pre-paid stamps for just a fraction of the true cost.
Lucas, from Apley Forge, Telford, pleaded guilty at Telford Magistrates' Court yesterday to obtaining services dishonestly under the Fraud Act 2006, section 11.
As well as the delicatessen, he also runs internet-based company Great British Trading Limited and used the Royal Mail online service SmartStamp, to set up an online account for advanced payment.
Lucas, 46, used Amazon to sell food produce and offered free postage to customers worldwide before printing off the pre-paid postage stamps with values of just 60 p or 88p, when many parcels were found to cost more than £20 to send.
Lucas posted 112 parcels and deliberately failed to pay the correct postage. The scam was detected following random checks at the Royal Mail centre in Wolverhampton.
Prosecuting on behalf of Royal Mail, John Dove, said: "Mr Lucas committed a series of frauds against Royal Mail where he grossly undervalued the cost and had painted correction fluid over the true value of the stamp. Lucas had undervalued the postal of 112 parcels, totalling £1,107.19
Following the seizure of the parcels, Mr Lucas was arrested and interviewed by Royal Mail where he admitted using undervalued stamps and paid back the owed postal amount in full.
Defending, Mr Jonathan Mison, said Mr Lucas was "deeply ashamed" and had acted "out of desperation" because he didn't know which way to turn due to severe financial difficulties and business debts.
Mr Mison added: "The offence took place over a short period of time where Lucas was not thinking straight. The plan was so unsophisticated the original postage cost was covered with correction fluid."
Chairman of magistrates Quinta Brown said: "We would normally be looking at a community sentence if not custody. However, in this case we are going to make the unusual sentence of conditional discharge for three years, which shows how serious we take this offence." Lucas was also ordered to pay £2,500 costs and £15 victim surcharge.
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Hi there folks. It’s been a long time since I last published a post. I have been busy. However in this post I am going to share some really informative tips and tricks which you might not have known about. So without wasting any time lets get straight to them:
Enumerate
Instead of doing:
i = 0 for item in iterable: print i, item i += 1
We can do:
for i, item in enumerate(iterable): print i, item
Enumerate can also take a second argument. Here is an example:
>>> list(enumerate('abc')) [(0, 'a'), (1, 'b'), (2, 'c')] >>> list(enumerate('abc', 1)) [(1, 'a'), (2, 'b'), (3, 'c')]
Dict/Set comprehensions
You might know about list comprehensions but you might not be aware of dict/set comprehensions. They are simple to use and just as effective. Here is an example:
my_dict = {i: i * i for i in xrange(100)} my_set = {i * 15 for i in xrange(100)} # There is only a difference of ':' in both
Forcing float division:
If we divide whole numbers Python gives us the result as a whole number even if the result was a float. In order to circumvent this issue we have to do something like this:
result = 1.0/2
But there is another way to solve this problem which even I wasn’t aware of. You can do:
from __future__ import division result = 1/2 # print(result) # 0.5
Voila! Now you don’t need to append .0 in order to get an accurate answer. Do note that this trick is for Python 2 only. In Python 3 there is no need to do the import as it handles this case by default.
Simple Server
Do you want to quickly and easily share files from a directory? You can simply do:
# Python2 python -m SimpleHTTPServer # Python 3 python3 -m http.server
This would start up a server.
Evaluating Python expressions
We all know about eval but do we all know about literal_eval? Perhaps not. You can do:
import ast my_list = ast.literal_eval(expr)
Instead of:
expr = "[1, 2, 3]" my_list = eval(expr)
I am sure that it’s something new for most of us but it has been a part of Python for a long time.
Profiling a script
You can easily profile a script by running it like this:
python -m cProfile my_script.py
Object introspection
You can inspect objects in Python by using dir(). Here is a simple example:
>>> foo = [1, 2, 3, 4] >>> dir(foo) ['__add__', '__class__', '__contains__', '__delattr__', '__delitem__', '__delslice__', ... , 'extend', 'index', 'insert', 'pop', 'remove', 'reverse', 'sort']
Debugging scripts
You can easily set breakpoints in your script using the pdb module. Here is an example:
import pdb pdb.set_trace()
You can write pdb.set_trace() anywhere in your script and it will set a breakpoint there. Super convenient. You should also read more about pdb as it has a couple of other hidden gems as well.
Simplify if constructs
If you have to check for several values you can easily do:
if n in [1,4,5,6]:
instead of:
if n==1 or n==4 or n==5 or n==6:
Reversing a list/string
You can quickly reverse a list by using:
>>> a = [1,2,3,4] >>> a[::-1] [4, 3, 2, 1] # This creates a new reversed list. # If you want to reverse a list in place you can do: a.reverse()
and the same can be applied to a string as well:
>>> foo = "yasoob" >>> foo[::-1] 'boosay'
Pretty print
You can print dicts and lists in a beautiful way by doing:
from pprint import pprint pprint(my_dict)
This is more effective on dicts. Moreover, if you want to pretty print json quickly from a file then you can simply do:
cat file.json | python -m json.tools
Ternary Operators
Ternary operators are shortcut for an if-else statement, and are also known as a conditional operators. Here are some examples which you can use to make your code compact and more beautiful.
[on_true] if [expression] else [on_false] x, y = 50, 25 small = x if x < y else y
Thats all for today! I hope you enjoyed this article and picked up a trick or two along the way. See you in the next article. Make sure that you follow us on Facebook and Twitter!
Do you have any comments or suggestions? You can write a comment or email me on yasoob.khld (at) gmail.com
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Genes essential to the immune system that are “entrusted” to microbial “Old Friends”
In 2005 Sarkis Mazmanian and colleagues showed that a single polysaccharide from an intestinal commensal, Bacteroides fragilis, could largely correct the subnormal and functionally distorted development of the immune system that occurs in germ-free mice (Mazmanian et al. 2005). More recently they have shown, using three different models of intestinal inflammation, that the same polysaccharide, given by mouth, can turn on crucial immunoregulatory pathways (Mazmanian et al. 2008). In the discussion of the latter paper they state:-
“We propose that the mammalian genome does not encode for all functions required for immunological development but rather that mammals depend on critical interactions with their microbiome (the collective genomes of the microbiota) for health.”
To put it even more simply, some genes needed by the immune system might have been “entrusted” to microorganisms. Clearly these have to be organisms with which mammals have co-evolved for a very long time, and that are always present. They will obviously not be organisms that merely cause sporadic infections. The latter can modify the human genome by elimination of susceptible genotypes, but they cannot be relied upon to supply genes and functions that we need.
This point should lead to a reappraisal of the “hygiene hypothesis”, which seeks to explain the increasing incidence of chronic inflammatory disorders in developed countries. The hygiene hypothesis has a long history, but interest in it grew in 1989 when it was observed that allergic disorders were less common in the younger siblings of large families (Strachan 1989). It was postulated that childhood infections passed on from older family members might in some way protect from allergies. To many allergologists this seemed a strange notion, because the allergies are commonest in the crowded, developed inner cities where the childhood infections are rife, and least common in isolated rural communities. However from a Darwinian point of view there are even stronger reasons for suspecting that sporadic childhood infections are not the crucial factor. Most of the human childhood viruses were picked up from animals during the close contact resulting from animal husbandry which began only about 10,000 years ago (~500 generations). Moreover, these viruses require large communities to sustain endemicity…… hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions… so endemicity is very recent (Armelagos and Harper 2005). Similarly the non-viral childhood infections are sporadic and could not have evolved the role of delivering essential genes. Perhaps it is not surprising then that several rigorous studies have failed to show that childhood infections protect from allergic disorders (Benn et al. 2004; Dunder et al. 2007; Bremner et al. 2008), despite reproducing the effect of family size and birth order. (The latter might be explained by a fascinating effect of hepatitis A virus, which binds to a receptor on T cells (TIM-1) that modulates their differentiation (McIntire et al. 2003). HAV seropositivity has declined from almost universal in about 1970, to rare or sporadic now).
So if the relevant environmental changes are not to be found amongst the childhood infections, can Mazmanian’s studies provide an alternative explanation for the increasing prevalence of chronic inflammatory disorders? This is far from clear because it is likely that in the developed countries Bacteroides fragilis is universally present in human intestines, just as it always was in the past. There is some variation in time of appearance of this organism in the microbiota (delayed by caesarian section, for example), but this does not relate to allergic manifestations (Adlerberth et al. 2007), and ultimately it is always present. I suggest that the answer to this dilemma lies in the existence of other “Old Friends” in addition to the gut microbiota, of which we have become aware via a rather different train of thought. Initially the hygiene hypothesis assumed that whatever was changing in the microbial environment was leading to an imbalance of effector mechanisms (more Th2 activity, which mediate allergies, because less Th1 was being driven by infections). However from about 1998 we started to point out that other chronic inflammatory disorders were increasing in parallel with Th2-mediated allergies, and that some of these, such as Crohn’s disease and multiple sclerosis, were mediated by Th1 cells (Rook and Stanford 1998; Rook 2000). The common factor was clearly a failure of immunoregulation that was allowing inappropriate, poorly controlled activity of both Th1 and Th2 responses, manifested as allergies, autoimmunity or inflammatory bowel disease. These ideas were amplified by others (Wills-Karp et al. 2001; Bach 2002; Yazdanbakhsh et al. 2002). Then in 2003 we suggested the “Old Friends” hypothesis. Our thinking was that if there are organisms that have an evolutionarily determined role in driving appropriate background levels of immunoregulation, they are likely to be those organisms that must be tolerated… a state dependent upon immunoregulation. These organisms fall into two classes in addition to the commensal microbiota considered by Mazmanian. First, there are helminths that although not always harmless, must be tolerated once they are established, because attempts to eliminate them are futile and merely cause immunopathology. (Helminth infections were universal, but are now rare in rich countries). Secondly, there are the organisms we have termed “pseudo-commensals” because although not replicating in or on the human subject, they were inevitably always present in the gut, because they were always present in mud and untreated water. (For instance there can be easily 109 saprophytic mycobacteria in a litre of untreated water, and huge numbers of fermenting lactobacilli in non-refrigerated vegetable foods and drinks). So we introduced the “Old Friends” hypothesis (Rook et al. 2003; Rook 2007), and suggested that these organisms might have been entrusted by evolution with the role of setting up the regulatory circuits of the immune system. I suggest that these organisms are as relevant as the true commensal microbiota highlighted by the work of Mazmanian and colleagues (Mazmanian et al. 2005; Mazmanian et al. 2008). In fact it is interesting to speculate that an organism that is a “pseudo-commensal” is a risky one to use as the provider of crucial genes, because changing lifestyles can, (and indeed do), eliminate environmental organisms, while true commensals continue to be passed on through the generations. Importantly, these other “Old Friends” all satisfy the following criteria (Discussed in Rook 2007):-
Abundant during mammalian evolution (i.e. going back much further than the ~500 generations since the start of agriculture) Virtually absent …and increasingly so over the last century….. from the modern environment (which is probably not true of Bacteroides fragilis ) proven to have therapeutic effects in animal models of chronic inflammatory disorders some proven to have therapeutic effects in clinical trials (Listed in Rook 2007)
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Ok, I think it is safe to say that Hugh Howey is my favorite author. There is just something about Wool (and the Shift trilogy) that is unlike anything I've read before. I think it is the way he constantly surprises the reader.
On to the Third Shift. I have to admit I was not in the mood to read this book when I did. I just knew that it was the next and last Shift book and so I had to read it. I will also say that for the first 40-50% I was just a little bored. However, the the last 60-50% ranked up there in the top of the Wool / Shift series.
Third Shift deftly weaves two stories simultaneously. (I hate giving away spoilers so I am not going to). The first story is of Jimmy who finds himself left alone in a server room during an uprising. While the second focuses on another silo with a man coming to power and trying to find answers.
The first story is incredible. What would it be like to be alone for so long? What bumps and imaginary sounds would terrify you? That is what we learn from what Jimmy has to go through. I think this was the part of the book I liked the most.
The second story focuses on Donald. He was woke by mistake to lead the silo. During this time he is given access to all of the silo's secrets and finds the tough answers that he was looking for. The question is what does he intend to do about them now. This was by far, the most action packed and satisfying part of the Wool / Shift series so far.
I know that I am preaching to the choir here to all the Howey fans, but this isn't just the best Wool / Shift series I have read. This is one of the best books I have read written by a gifted author and storyteller.
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A few months ago, we reported on yet another in a long line of legal actions brought against the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society for its now infamous and heavily criticized methods of handling accusations of child abuse inside its organisation.
Journalist Dorian Hargrove reported in the San Diego Reader on the lawsuit brought by abuse survivor Osbaldo Padron against Watchtower due to their alleged mishandling of sexual abuse committed against him by infamous Jehovah’s Witness serial sex offender Gonzalo Campos.
Campos is already the focus of multiple lawsuits against Watchtower from other victims, including abuse survivor Jose Lopez.
In his original article, which we reported on and analysed here, Hargrove wrote that part of the case against Watchtower was that its mishandling of the abuse inflicted on Padron by Lopez fit a far larger pattern of such behaviour from the organisation: a systemic failure to confront child molestation accusations in an effective manner, and a deliberate policy of not bringing such accusations to the attention of the authorities.
It was alleged that documents held by Watchtower proved this accusation; documents that list tens of thousands of alleged Jehovah’s Witness child molesters that the religion has failed to report or act upon, but has instead simply filed away.
Watchtower has confirmed the existence of these documents, but when ordered to produce them by the court in March 2015, they have provided them in an extremely redacted form, rendering them essentially useless to Padron’s legal team.
Therefore in April 2016, Padron’s legal team made a motion for the judge to apply sanctions against Watchtower for each day it refused to hand over unredacted documents.
Today, in a new article, Hargrove reports that the Judge has upheld this motion.
Reports Hargrove (bold is mine):
In March 2015, the church turned over a heavily redacted version of the letter. Opposing attorneys called the redactions excessive, rendering the document illegible. Judge Strauss then assigned a discovery referee to sit with the two sides. But having a referee involved didn’t solve matters. Repeatedly, the Watchtower Society has stated that it will not comply with the order. “By the time of the hearing on the motion for sanctions, it will have been over a year since the initial order and almost three months since the [referee’s recommendation] was adopted,” reads Strauss’s ruling. “In the period since…Watchtower has shown no effort or willingness to comply with the discovery order. “Based upon the history in this case and Watchtower’s statements…the court finds that Watchtower’s failure to comply is willful…Watchtower clearly has control over the documents it has already produced and could revise the redactions with regard to those documents. This is obviously and clearly within the scope of Watchtower’s powers which it chooses not to exercise. Continuing to repeat its prior unsuccessful arguments in opposition to the discovery order further illustrates Watchtower’s obstinacy in compliance.”
Those of us familiar with Watchtowers conduct when faced with legal enquiries into its child abuse policies will not be surprised to hear words such as “obstinacy” or “wilful failure” used when describing their court tactics. The last few years have seen Governing Body members flee in panic from chances to give testimony in support of their organisation, as well as senior Watchtower officials caught telling outright lies under oath in regard to this matter. They have even been caught trying to delay trials with tactics described by the Judge in the matter as “bad faith” and “abusive.”
Watchtower’s strategy often appears to be simple: lie, evade, stall.
In her ruling, Judge Strauss has decided to bring Watchtower’s stalling over this matter to a painful halt.
Court Documents obtained by JW Survey render the judgement thus:
“The court orders monetary sanctions of $2,000 per day for every day that Watchtower does not produce responsive documents and an additional $2,000 per day for every day that Watchtower does not search for responsive documents. In view of the acknowledged substantial net worth of Defendant, the court determines that the total daily amount of sanctions of $4,000 per day should be sufficient to determine if Defendant will comply with the discovery order and is not overly harsh.”
But this is just the first step. According to Court Documents, the Judge has also ruled:
“The court sets a status conference for July 22, 2016 to hear from the parties whether the monetary sanctions have been effective.”
This means that, should Watchtower fail to provide the documents by this date, the Judge can apply further sanctions. The pain will go up and up, until Watchtower either complies or is possibly even forced to forfeit their defense, if the events of another trial involving serial abuse Gonzalo Campos are any guideline.
Watchtower might repeatedly tell its followers that reports of it mishandling of child abuse are apostate lies, and that it has nothing to hide, but one only has to look to Watchtower’s conduct in the courtroom to see a very different side to the organisation.
It is not a side many honest-hearted Jehovah’s Witnesses would be comfortable to see.
We will of course keep you updated on further developments, as it seems clear this story is far from over. Will Watchtower produce these damning documents? How bad will the legal sanctions turn out to be?
It looks like we’re going to find out!
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The Al-Qaeda-affiliated Shabaab lost its foothold in Mogadishu in 2011 but has continued its fight, launching regular attacks on military, government and civilian targets in the Somali capital and elsewhere
ADVERTISING Read more
Mogadishu (AFP)
A suicide bomber from Somalia's Shabaab insurgents killed 18 police officers and wounded 15 others on Thursday when he blew himself up inside the country's main police academy, the force's chief said.
Witnesses said the police were gathered in a square ahead of their early morning parade when the bomber attacked in the capital Mogadishu.
The assault is the latest in a decade-old battle by the jihadists to overthrow Somalia's internationally-backed government.
"Eighteen members from the police were killed, and 15 others were wounded, after a suicide bomber blew himself inside the academy," acting police chief General Muktar Hussein Afrah told reporters.
The attacker disguised himself in a police uniform to access the camp, Afrah said.
"Some of the police were already in lines, and others were gathering, when the man in police uniform entered and blew himself up," said bystander Hussein Ali, describing the carnage.
Medics and ambulance teams rushed to take the wounded to hospital and collect the corpses.
Officers said the toll could have been far worse had the attacker detonated his bomb in the centre of the crowd.
"The bomber could have inflicted more casualties if he could have managed to reach the midpoint where most people were," police officer Ibrahim Mohamed said.
Later Thursday, police attended the funerals of some of their colleagues killed in the attack.
The Al-Qaeda-affiliated Shabaab claimed responsibility and put the toll at 27 dead.
"It was martyrdom operation, in which the mujahedeen targeted the police academy camp," a statement posted on a pro-Shabaab website read.
The Shabaab lost its foothold in Mogadishu in 2011 but has continued its fight, launching regular attacks on military, government and civilian targets in the capital and elsewhere.
In October, a huge truck bombing blamed on the Shabaab killed as many as 512 people, levelling buildings in the capital's busy Kilometre 5 neighbourhood.
Since then the United States has increased the frequency of air strikes targeting jihadist leaders.
On November 13, the Pentagon said US forces had killed more than 40 Shabaab and Islamic State fighters over four days.
An operation against a Shabaab camp on November 21 killed more than 100 fighters, according to the US Africa Command.
The increase in US raids comes as AMISOM, the AU's mission in Somalia, prepares to withdraw 1,000 troops from its 22,000-strong force, as part of plans to pull out all soldiers by December 2020.
Washington is worried the reduction will hamper efforts against jihadists.
A UN report last month warned that an Islamic State faction in the north of the country had grown significantly over the past year, carrying out attacks in the Puntland region and receiving some funding from Syria and Iraq.
© 2017 AFP
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This week the Brandwatch React team presented a collection of our US Election social data insights at Oxford University.
The event focused on how the election has been going down on social media, and we decided to focus our presentation on the way candidates and voters have been interacting with each other online.
Key points
We focused on gender data, the way the candidates interact with each other and the role of influencers in the run up to this year’s election. Here are some of our key findings, with more details below:
In general there are more male-categorized authors talking about the candidates, though females consistently out-tweet males during debates.
Hillary Clinton is tweeting about Donald Trump far more than he is tweeting about her.
The most influential Republicans and most influential Democrats have a very different make-up when it comes to the number of organizational accounts and well-known/official figures in each list.
Zooming in on gender
When you’re considering the number of tweets directed at a candidate it’s interesting to look at both the volume of tweets overall and the number of unique authors posting them.
Taking a look at the gender breakdown of unique authors discussing Clinton and Trump on Twitter we find a similar ratio of male/female tweeters for both candidates, both with a slight skew towards male authors. (This is fairly consistent with our data on there being slightly more men on Twitter than women in the US).
Things get a little more interesting when you compare this to the number of tweets directed at each candidate from men and women. We found that women were tweeting at a higher rate per-person and produced a higher volume of tweets about Hillary Clinton than male-categorized authors.
Another instance in which we saw a boost in female participation in the conversation is during the debates. This chart maps the volume of tweets by men and women between 1st September and 30th October. A chart looking at unique authors in the same period showed very similar spikes.
While there could be a number of reasons for females out-tweeting males during the debates, a possible explanation is the prominence of Trump’s treatment of women in recent months. Clicking into the mentions of the second debate (the most tweeted about by women), “locker room”, “sexual assault” and “respect for women” were amongst the top phrases used by females.
How the candidates interact with each other
Looking at the way the candidates talk about each other and behave on Twitter reveals some interesting differences.
Trump is a fairly sporadic tweeter with anything up to 267 tweets per day sent from his Twitter handles (in the period between September 1st and October 30th). Clinton’s record in this time frame is 95 in a single day.
We found that within Trump’s tweets 15.9% were directed at Hillary Clinton.
Meanwhile, within Clinton’s tweets 31.4% were directed at Trump.
Within those mentions, Trump was more likely to @ mention Hillary Clinton with 47 @HillaryClinton mentions compared to her 19 @realdonaldtrump-s.
The role of influencers in the US Election conversation
As more of the ways we see and do politics move online the more important it is to pay attention to the people making ripples in the conversation – the individual accounts that influence vast swathes of potential voters.
Earlier this year we used our tool Audiences to identify the most influential Republicans/Conservatives on Twitter as well as the most influential Democrats. Audiences can find accounts of interest by searching by bio or tweet content and then assigns individual accounts an influencer score based on criteria like their follower/following ratio, the amount of engagement the account generates and the influence of the other accounts they interact with.
Here are the top ten most influential self-identified Democrats and Republicans/Conservatives on Twitter.
We found that in general those appearing at the top of the Republican/Conservative list had a slightly higher influencer score compared to the Democrats. The Republican list also contained a lot more accounts belonging to “regular” people (as in, people who don’t necessarily have a large following outside of the internet) and fewer organizational accounts.
The Republican list certainly lends some weight to the idea that Trump is running a grass-roots campaign that inspires regular people to make their voices heard, while the Democratic influencers are more likely to be well-known individuals that reinforce Clinton’s reputation as the “establishment” candidate.
Are you a journalist looking to cover our data? We have plenty more. Email us [email protected] for more information
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Crime and Justice
Page updated:
Major revision January 1990
Last amendment March 2015
Background
CJ100 The term "crime" covers many different categories and types of acts or omissions. Most crimes cause or threaten harm to individuals, groups, the community, other species or the environment. Crimes are currently defined by legislation which gives the Courts power to impose sanctions on people convicted of committing them.
CJ101 Crime arises from a combination of individual and social factors. The level and types of crime are related to the sort of society we create. Green policies are directed to improving the quality, as opposed to simply the material wealth, of our society, and ensuring a just distribution of that wealth and quality of life.
CJ102 Current approaches to imposing sanctions are a confused amalgam of conflicting principles; deterrence and punishment mixed with compensation and rehabilitation. This confusion undermines the potential for success of the positive aspects of the present system.
Principles
CJ110 Given that crime should be seen as partly caused by social factors, it cannot be adequately addressed solely in terms of criminal justice and policing policy. A Green approach to crime reduction therefore places significant focus on the social causes of crime. As well as social crime prevention, this includes a broader range of social policies which will lessen the social pressures, such as poverty, inequality or addiction to illegal drugs, to commit crime.
CJ111 The lives and liberties of individuals, groups and society as a whole must be protected within a law-based system which strives for justice, including social and economic justice, and fairness. We therefore believe that it is necessary for society to define certain forms of harmful behaviour as crimes, but that the list of crimes should be kept as short as possible.
CJ112 Criminal justice cannot be successfully imposed from above, but needs as far as possible to be a product of a living, democratic community. The basic institutions of Green justice should be community-based and relatively informal in nature. They should provide maximum potential for public participation.
CJ113 The Green approach to dealing with offenders however differs markedly from current practice. We believe retributive sentencing to be ineffective in reducing crime.
CJ114 We will introduce the principle of "restorative justice", which while denouncing the crime, deals constructively with both the victim and the offender. The primary aim will be to restore and, if necessary, improve the position of the victim and the community; the offender will be required to make amends.
CJ115 Restorative justice recognises the need not only to ensure that the amount and nature of reparation be appropriate to the harm suffered, but also that it is within the capacity of the offender to make it. This means that any shortfall will have to be met by the community.
CJ116 The symbolism of the scales of justice would be interpreted in a new way; balancing the harm done to the victim or community not by further harm inflicted on the offender, but by requiring the offender to make reparation.
Objectives
CJ200 To reduce the amount of crime committed by some individuals against others, against the community, against other species or against the environment, with the emphasis on persuading and enabling rather than coercion.
CJ201 To assist the victims of criminal acts as much as possible.
CJ202 To demonstrate clearly and constructively to offenders and other members of the community that criminal acts are unacceptable.
CJ203 To require reparation for crimes committed rather than punishment or retribution.
CJ204 To heal the rifts resulting from crime in such a way as to further social integration and to integrate offenders into the community rather than outlaw them.
CJ205 To intervene as minimally as the seriousness of the offence and the circumstance will allow, in order to achieve the aims of CJ202, CJ203 and CJ204.
CJ206 To ensure that if an offender has to be detained, the purpose of detention is not to punish humiliate or degrade him/her, but to protect society or the offender her/himself, while maintaining his/her dignity and human rights.
Policies
CJ300 A two-fold strategy is required; firstly to reduce crime and, secondly, to respond to it. This will ensure that crime prevention can focus on reducing the social pressures that are or are considered to be conducive to crime, and that restorative justice can function no longer complicated by incompatible considerations of crime prevention or general deterrence.
CJ301 These two functions will become the responsibility of two new ministries;
1) Departments of Crime Prevention: in addition to traditional modes of crime prevention, these departments will also promote social crime prevention.
2) Departments of Justice: in addition to responsibility for the judicial system, sentencing policy and practice, these departments will also sponsor services such as assistance to victims.
CJ302 These departments will function at every level of government, in accordance with Green Party policies on power being exercised at the lowest appropriate level.
Departments of Crime Prevention
CJ310 Prevention of social harms, including crime, is ineffective in our present society, because of a limited vision of what could be achieved by integrated policies designed to build a stable and just society.
CJ311 In addition to what is traditionally thought of as crime prevention (policing, physical security and so on), these departments would undertake:
a) social crime prevention, that is, reducing social pressures that are, or are considered likely to be, conducive to crime;
b) education to promote the development of communication cooperation and problem-solving skills.
CJ312 At each level of Government, these departments will co-ordinate the activities of other Departments concerned with social policies, especially housing, employment, education, recreation, social security, in much the same way as the Department of the Environment is concerned with the effects of other departments on pollution, and the Treasury with their expenditure.
Reducing the Threat of Crime
CJ313 Policy measures to reduce both the real threat and the fear of crime would include:
i) ensuring universal access to high quality youth facilities and open spaces.
ii) improving street lighting and ensuring people-friendly street design.
iii) ensuring prompt repairs of public amenities and spaces.
iv) increasing resources for caretakers, attendants and staff on estates, railway stations, parks and other public areas.
v) tackling drug related crime by pursuing measures outlined in DU410-413.
Police Services
CJ315 The Police service has failed to build meaningful trust with many communities and still does not adequately represent or reflect Britain's diversity, including its ethnic diversity. The police are only a mechanism to uphold laws which the community in general consider reasonable and fair. Policing must be by the consent of the community. The Green Party therefore supports:
i) Police forces supervised by and accountable to elected local government.
ii) A fully and comprehensively independent approach to investigations of police criminality and corruption, incorporating transparency in ensuring police are charged and investigated in the same manner as all other citizens of the UK.
iii) Appointment of more community and part-time police.
iv) Recruitment to police forces emphasising selection of candidates with previous experience in other walks of life.
v) An emphasis on crime prevention.
vi) Thorough anti-racism and equalities training for all staff working in the police and related services, full implementation of all Lawrence inquiry report recommendations, and requiring all police forces to have equality and diversity liaison officers whose remit is to support and educate colleagues and ensure that incidents and hate crimes which target LGBTIQA+ people, people from black and ethnic minorities (including refugees and asylum seekers) and disabled people are thoroughly investigated and where appropriate, prosecuted, and that preventive action is taken.
vii) Strong, democratic community policing committees in every neighbourhood.
viii) More local police stations.
ix) Greater emphasis on ensuring diversity in all levels of policing so that they include people from a range of backgrounds including people from black and ethnic minorities, different sexual orientations, various faiths, trans people, and other social and cultural backgrounds, and are more equal in the employment of men and women.
CJ316 There will be fully independent inquiries into deaths in police custody and the police shooting of civilians.
Departments of Justice
CJ320 The departments of Justice would combine the current functions of the Lord Chancellors Department and the Home Office in relation to the administration of justice. They would be responsible for the judicial system, sentencing policy and practice. They would support and fund victim assistance agencies such as Victim Support Schemes, Women's Aid, Rape Crisis Centres and schemes to support people who suffer racist, transphobic or homophobic attacks or harassment. They would also sponsor and support local alternative dispute resolution initiatives including Mediation Centres.
CJ321 The Department of Justice at the local level of government will organise the setting up of Local Mediation Centres and fund their running. These centres will not only offer mediation between victims and offenders but also mediation between personal or social groups in civil, domestic and neighbourhood disputes.
CJ322 In order to ensure more effective justice and reduced crime, resources will be targeted towards enhancing co-operation between the police, the Prosecution Service, defence services, mediation services and courts and towards providing all parties involved in the justice process with sufficient means to reach fair decisions through transparent due process.
The Justice Process
CJ330 The community's first response to a crime is to offer support and services to victims.
CJ331 All accused who admit the offence or are convicted would immediately be provided with an opportunity to offer reparation to the victim(s). Local victim/offender mediation services could convey such offers to victims, in liaison with victim support, and negotiate between the two parties, offering the chance of a direct meeting - in the immediate future or later on - if the victim would like to have the opportunity.
CJ332 It is important to note that the process of mediation and reparation does not put all the onus on the offender. It is a mutual process: the community has a responsibility to provide adequate and well-staffed support facilities.
CJ333 Where offences have no identifiable victim, or where the victim does not wish to take part, offenders may still be offered mediation, but in this case with victims whose offenders have not been apprehended or with community representatives.
CJ334 Reparation might take various forms directly to the victim, if the latter wanted it, or in service or payment to the community; or it might include taking part in a programme that would encourage the offender to avoid offending again, such as vocational training, counselling, therapy, problem solving and other ways of overcoming disadvantage; or it might be a combination of these different forms of reparation. Where a crime has a transphobic, homophobic, or racist elements or targets people due to a disability or faith, the offender should be given specific training to encourage them to review their attitudes.
CJ335 For less serious crimes which have little effect except on those personally involved, the Prosecution Service (CPS) would use its discretion not to prosecute if adequate compensation had been agreed or to suspend prosecution conditionally on the offenders carrying out agreed reparation.
CJ336 For serious offences where the offender is regarded as a danger to society, or others are affected (for example because they fear they may become the next victims), a personal settlement is not enough. Serious offences require a public denunciation, and these cases would be brought to Court by the prosecution.
CJ337 Where the offender pleaded guilty or was found guilty, the court would:
a) review any reparation already made and decide whether more was required in view of the seriousness of the offence;
b) consider any other suitable non-custodial options, e.g. probation or assistance with relocation;
c) subject to the offenders consent, arrange treatment or counselling;
d) if the offenders past behaviour or the offence were so serious as to indicate a grave danger to society, and there was a serious risk of repetition, order restrictions or detention.
CJ338 The Green Party will consider the possibility of supplementing the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme with a publicly funded safety-net compensation scheme in the case of property crimes where the victims cannot afford insurance and are dependent on Basic Income (EC730) or benefits, and where the offender has not the means to make full financial reparation, or where no offender has been convicted.
Sentencing
CJ340 Wholly unacceptable levels of men, women and children are currently imprisoned at great cost to their future rehabilitation, as well as to their families, the taxpayer and society in general. The Green Party is therefore committed to significantly reducing the prison population. To that end, a range of measures will be used, including changes to sentencing policy and practice. Courts will have a duty to reduce use of custodial sentencing in favour of community sentencing. (See also 'Immediate Prison Reforms' section, below.)
CJ341 New principles will be introduced giving Courts the duty to sentence with main objects of firstly, ensuring reparation to the victim or the community and secondly, persuading and enabling the offender to become a law-abiding member of the community.
CJ342 Reparation of whatever nature agreed or ordered would in the first place seek to reflect the actual financial and other losses and the pain, injury and inconvenience suffered by the victim. Then the offender's ability to pay and perform the reparation would also be taken into account.
CJ343 Reparation successfully completed before sentencing by the court in a serious case will be taken into account in determining the sentence. Mediation between victim and offender, however, will be a voluntary process affecting only the victim and offender as individuals.
CJ344 Current non-custodial sentences such as Community Service and Probation would continue to be used, but the use of fines would be replaced by measures which make reparation for the harm/ inconvenience caused. In the short term emphasis would be placed on increasing the reparative element in sentencing and reducing the use of detention.
CJ345 Vulnerable people such as those with mental health problems or learning difficulties will, in a Green society, benefit from sufficient community support to reduce the likelihood of their offending. Their greatest needs are not for penal measures but for stable and caring families, decent accommodation and community medical (including psychiatric) provision.
CJ346 Sentencing practice would be constantly monitored to reveal:
a) whether it is being effective in ensuring reparation for the victim;
b) whether offenders are required to make reparation;
c) whether it is delivered in a non-discriminatory way as between different ethnic, gender and other social groups.
d) the extent to which it contributes to a reduction in crime.
Hate Crime
CJ350 In a just society everyone should be protected from crimes motivated by hatred and discrimination based on ethnicity, colour, gender, trans, sexual orientation, religion, social origin, age, disability including learning difficulties or any other prejudice. A comprehensive strategy will be adopted to tackle, significantly reduce and ultimately end hate crime. This will combine appropriate legislation, police and community resourcing and initiatives, and sentencing. Its effectiveness will be monitored and adjusted as necessary, in consultation with relevant non-government and civil society organisations and the equalities commissions.
Equal Opportunities Policing
CJ351 We will bring to an end the disproportionate targeting of ethnic minorities through stop and search
Domestic Abuse
CJ352 Addressing the imbalances of power - including economic and social power - that can leave individuals vulnerable to domestic abuse is central to many aspects of Green Party policy. The Green Party recognises that domestic abuse takes places in a range of circumstances, in all types of relationships, and that the victims can be women or men, children or vulnerable adults, including disabled adults, older adults, trans people and people in same sex relationships. Nonetheless, it is acknowledged that a large majority of cases involve abuse by men against women, with research indicating that one in four women will experience domestic abuse during their lifetime. On average more than two women a week in Britain are killed by current or former domestic partners. Abuse can be physical, emotional or psychological, financial, or involve restricting of personal freedom.
CJ353 Relationship education to inculcate values of respect for others and respect for difference will be provided in schools and other appropriate environments. Such education will also provide knowledge about the unacceptability of abusive behaviour of all types, and about when potential victims are most vulnerable (such as women during pregnancy, in relationships involving drugs and alcohol), how abusers can gradually wear away at resistance, and what escape routes are available.
CJ354 Programmes will be provided that train all frontline staff dealing with the public, including housing officers, street rangers, police, workers in the health services and particularly maternity services, and other relevant individuals to recognise signs of abuse and to be able to provide pathways of escape for victims. They will recognise that for different victims different referral points and aid agencies will be appropriate. Victims will not be pushed towards police and the criminal justice system against their inclination or will. Peer support networks, with appropriate training and support, will be encouraged.
CJ355 Multi-agency working is essential to identify the full extent of domestic abuse and improve prevention or early intervention. Crime Reduction Partnerships must take lead in co-ordinating information from refuges, NHS, Police, Children's Services, Adult Services, social housing, schools, voluntary organisations and any other appropriate local body who may have information about individuals and families at risk.
CJ356 The Green Party recognise that domestic abuse can have wide ranging impacts, affecting whole families and neighbourhoods. Where children are living in households where there is physical abuse among partners, the children can often also be at risk of physical abuse, and witnessing abuse can have long-term psychological damage. We will expand access to counselling is for all those affected by domestic abuse, the victims, the witnesses and the perpetrators. This is the most effective way of reducing re-offending and breaking cycles of offending within family and neighbourhood networks.
CJ357 It will be assumed that victims will be assisted to remain in their own homes with the provision of all necessary safety measures (including alarms, improved locks and grills, extra police patrols, "neighbourhood watch" schemes etc). Where this is not possible or desired by the victim, appropriate immediate refuge and future housing will be available for all victims escaping domestic abuse. All of these provisions will be publicly funded with permanent guaranteed funding, so that there is certainty about their continuity. Victims will be offered appropriate counselling, and measures put in place to attempt to prevent offenders reoffending.
CJ358 For victims escaping domestic abuse, lack of funds can be a major barrier. If the abuser controls finance and the victim can not access public funding (e.g. working individuals who can't claim benefits), then the barriers to escaping are increased. All essential services will be made readily available to all victims to help them through the trauma and difficulties to escape abuse, including help with housing, legal costs, etc. The court system will be provided with appropriate resources and guidance to ensure that the needs of victims of abuse are recognised, both in hearings related to their case and other matters.
CJ359 Asylum policy will recognise that claimants may be especially vulnerable to domestic abuse, and will ensure that asylum claims of victims fleeing abuse are treated appropriately. It will also recognise that claims may be validly made on the ground that victims' own state will not or cannot protect them from an abusive partner.
Environmental Crime
CJ360 Environmental problems would inevitably assume much greater significance for a Green society; there would be a strengthening of legislation.
CJ361 While the protection of the environment would be promoted in accordance with the principles set out herein, a strong legal base will make it both easier and more desirable to establish community-based and regional forums for the settlement of environmental disputes and for preventing environmental harm by means of voluntary agreement. Third party mediation of multi-group disputes, where there are genuine conflicts of interest in the community, are now well-developed techniques and should be adopted in preference to authoritarian planning decision making structures. Coercion should be a last resort.
Wildlife and Animal Crimes
CJ362 Action is needed to tackle crimes committed against other species. These include infliction of suffering or failure to provide 'duty of care' for animals, the breaking of other animal protection legislation and crimes committed against threatened species and wild animals. Every police force will have a dedicated Wildlife and Animal Crimes Unit, which will work in liaison with local/regional Animal Rights Officers. (See AR401)
Motoring and Road Traffic Offences
CJ365 A separate but not wholly exclusive code dealing with these categories of offence will be implemented using many of the principles and guidelines referred to above but taking account of the particular role of the motor vehicle in society.
Homelessness
CJ366 The Green Party calls for the repeal of the Vagrancy Act 1824 because it is open to abuse by police and government. It discriminates against homeless people and wrongly labels them as criminals when their plight is a social problem.
Restriction, Detention and other Punitive Measures
CJ370 In some cases it will be necessary to place restrictions upon offenders to prevent re-offending, and in some of these cases to hold them in detention.
CJ371 Courts will have power to impose restrictions, for example by requiring offenders to report at stated intervals, or disqualifying them from practising certain occupations.
CJ372 Only the Crown Court will have the power to order detention and only when it is satisfied that the public must be protected because there is a substantial risk of a further grave crime, or that the offences have caused such public alarm that the offenders presence in the community would constitute a threat to his/her own safety.
CJ373 The duration of detention will be subject to a maximum, determined by Statute, and within the statutory limits set by the Court. Parole or early release will be subject to Department of Justice executive review with a right of appeal to a judicial forum.
CJ374 Prisoners will be granted the right to vote. Any decision to deny a prisoner the vote will be taken only by a judge, taking into account the particular circumstances of his/her case.
CJ375 When individuals fail to make reparation or to pay taxes, maintenance, or other moneys where the present penalty for non-payment is imprisonment, they will be required to make reparation for their default through service to the community if no other way of recovering the money is effective. In addition, in the case of those who have income in addition to the Basic Income which will be guaranteed under Green fiscal policy, repayments will be deducted from the Basic Income (EC750). A limit would be placed on the repayments to ensure that the individual was left with not less than the Basic Income.
CJ376 No person in contempt of court will be detained until an opportunity for non-custodial means of purging the contempt has been offered.
Immediate prison reforms
CJ380 The physical and social standards of prisoners will be improved so that as far as possible the only limitation on the dignity of their lives will be the denial of freedom of movement outside the prison. Prisoners would normally have their own room. They would enjoy extended facilities for communication and association with family and friends including unsupervised visits. Prisoners would as far as possible be detained near their family and home community.
CJ381 Recognising the nature of the female prison population, with high levels of mental illness, experience of being a victim of crimes such as sexual assault and domestic violence, and caring responsibilities for children, the only women who should be in custody are those very few that commit serious and violent crimes and who present a threat to the public.
CJ382 For the vast majority of women in the criminal justice system, solutions in the community are more appropriate. Community sentences must be designed to take account of women’s particular vulnerabilities and domestic and childcare commitments. The restrictions placed on sentencers around breaches of community orders must be made more flexible.
CJ383 Existing women’s prisons should be replaced with suitable geographically dispersed, small, multi-functional custodial centres. More supported accommodation should be provided for women on release to break the cycle of repeat offending and custody.
CJ384 Pregnant women in prison are particularly vulnerable and the scheme provided by the charity Birth Companions, which visits pregnant prisoners once a week, stays with them through birth and gives them support afterwards, should be extended to all women who wish to use it, with government funding.
CJ385 Prisoners should have improved access to meaningful activities, particularly real work and education and artistic and creative facilities. Particular efforts should be focused on ensuring all prisoners attain levels of literacy sufficient to allow them to function effectively in modern society.
CJ386 Prisoners will be offered counselling and appropriate assistance to overcome the root cause of their offences and reduce the likelihood of re-offending.
CJ387 Homelessness after release is a significant factor in reoffending. We will seek innovative schemes - such as offering training in construction skills that prisoners can use to restore dilapidated housing that they can then inhabit - to help deal with the problem.
CJ388 Prisoners rights will be legally enforceable and will be supplemented by grievance procedures and a prisoners' complaints commission, headed by a prison ombudsperson to whom appeal can be made if a grievance cannot be resolved within a particular institution. Regular spot inspections by lay visitors and Department of Justice inspectors will further contribute to ensure standards are maintained and human rights safeguarded. Suicide and self-harm are a huge problem within our prisons and we will ensure prevention efforts are stepped up. ‘Buddy schemes’, where prisoners help each other, guided by organisations such as The Samaritans, will be strongly encouraged.
CJ389 The Prison Medical Service will be incorporated into the improved National Health Service (see Health Policy). Its responsibilities will cover access to complementary health care, health education and the provision of counselling as well as the direct medication care of prisoners.
CJ390 The Health and Safety Acts and Factories Acts, the Environmental Protection Act 1990 and the Unfitness provisions of the Housing Act 1985 will also be applied to prisons, and Crown Immunity will be abolished in relation to prisons.
CJ391 Young People under the age of 18 would no longer be kept in custody. Social Services Departments will have the responsibility to establish and run a range of small secure residential homes to cater for the needs of particular types of young people with special needs. Safeguards similar to those set out in CJ383 will be built in to the system.
CJ392 There will be adequate facilities and a suitable environment to allow a young child to stay or live with their parent or guardian in custody when this is considered to be in the best interests of the child.
CJ393 We oppose privatisation, use of PFI and any creeping or part privatisation of our prisons and the prison service.
Bail and remand pending trial
CJ394 We will strengthen the right to bail for suspects. Bail will be withheld only when the court has strong grounds for believing that a suspect must be separated from the public until the trial for the same reasons as apply to the power to order detention (see CJ372), or if the suspect has failed to honour bail commitments.
CJ395 Special arrangements will be made to ensure that the trial of such suspects will normally be held within six weeks from the time of arrest. Remand in custody will only be used for offences and offenders where detention after sentence is permitted. There will be a strict limit to the length of the remand. The safeguards set out in CJ383 above will also apply to bail hostels and detention cells in police stations and courts.
Costings
CJ400 The system of criminal justice proposed will we believe be cheaper and more effective than the existing system. Principal savings will come from the reduction in the use of imprisonment, but savings will also flow from the diversion from the courts of more minor offences.
Gun Control and Gun Crime
CJ500 Gun crime is a particularly serious problem and the Green Party is committed to tackling it by ensuring a high level of gun control as well as addressing the social factors which contribute to people committing crimes with guns.
Also, as well as their actual use, the presence and availability of guns and 'gun culture' contributes to fear of crime, intimidation and the reluctance of witnesses and victims to report crimes.
The Green Party is committed to introducing the following measures:
Defining lethal weapons
The lethality of a gun will be defined quantitatively in law, thereby covering new weapons resulting from developments in firearms technology. Prohibited weapons
The most dangerous weapons will be prohibited. These include handguns, multi-shot and high calibre weapons. There will be a complete ban on the private ownership/possession of all automatic and semi-automatic firearms. A suitably constituted Gun Safety Advisory Committee will regularly review which weapons are prohibited. Deactivated weapons
All deactivated weapons will be treated the same as active weapons in terms of prohibition and licensing, as they are capable of being reactivated and can cause fear because they appear as though active. Licensing
A single rigorous licensing process will be put in place based on considerations of public safety rather than the convenience of shooters. Subject to relevant criteria, licenses will be issued for permitted shotguns and rifles, all lethal airguns and permitted deactivated guns.
Users of firearms for sporting or agricultural purposes will be required to demonstrate their competence in handling firearms and satisfy the authorities of their mental and emotional stability: Applicants should also be required to obtain the signature of, say, ten citizens (just as a prospective electoral candidate) who will vouch for the good character of the licence holder. This will discourage the 'loners' and socially isolated individuals who are most at risk of committing the horror that occurred at Dunblane and Hungerford. The cost of medical and psychological tests must be borne by the applicant, together with a new annual fee which is sufficient to repay the economic damage - to police, court and NHS - inflicted on it by the abuse of guns generally. When licences are awarded the onus will be on the applicant to demonstrate his or her suitability to handle firearms rather than on the authorities to prove the applicant's unsuitability. Licence holders will be required to renew their applications on an annual basis individuals whose licence application is rejected will be required to wait at least two years before re-applying. Imitation weapons
There will be a complete ban on the manufacture, sale and import of imitation weapons (replica guns and blank firers) and a ban on their public possession. There will be licenses for imitation weapons used for film/theatrical purposes, and legislation to ensure toy guns are highly distinct in appearance, probably by being made of clear/translucent plastic.
International
The death penalty
CJ600 There is no place for capital punishment in a criminal justice system which is compassionate, just and respectful of human rights. No country or state should retain the death penalty in its criminal justice system. The Green Party advocates the abolition of the death penalty in all countries, and will use its influence in support of instruments and campaigns at national and international level which seek its global abolition.
Financial Sector Fraud
CJ700 The Green Party would legislate to provide for the proper and robust prosecution of those who commit financial sector and banking fraud and participate in the mis-selling of financial products.
Crime Prevention & Justice chapter updates
Spring 2017: revision to CJ315
Spring 2015: amendment to CJ315 (ii) and new CJ700
Autumn 2013: new CJ351 inserted - Equal Opportunities Policing
Spring 2009: deleted reference to 0.5J in CJ500
Autumn 2004
The following additional policy statements can be found in the Green Party Record of Policy Statements (RoPS) for Crime & Justice available on the Members website:
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One of the best things about being a LSU Fan is that you almost always have someone to cheer for in a NFL game. This is especially handy when the college season is over and you still have some Tigers to cheer for in the NFL playoffs.
This year was a great year for LSU in the NFL with 10 of the 12 teams in the playoffs featuring at least one LSU player on their roster.
With odds like that it comes as no surprise that whoever wins the Superbowl this year it’s going to be a Purple and Gold Superbowl. Nothing unusual for Tigers fans there. After all, LSU was represented by 9 of the last 10 Superbowl Champions.
Three LSU players will see the field in the Superbowl this week: Brandon LaFell and Stevan Ridley for the Patriots, and Tharold Simon for the Seahawks.
LaFell will likely see the most action. He’s a starter who picked up 953 yards and 7 TD’s on 74 receptions for New England. Stevan Ridley is a backup, but gets regular touches in the New England running back rotation.
Tharold Simon is a Seattle backup but he plays a lot and started a stretch of games while Byron Maxwell was out with an injury this year. Seattle may be grooming him as a starter if Maxwell leaves in free agency this year, so you should expect to see his jersey on the field often.
Brandon Lafell will likely have the biggest impact on the game because he is a starter and a regular target for Tom Brady. He will definitely see some balls thrown his way. With the Seahawks sure to keep a lot of focus on Gronkowski during the game anything happening in the passing game away from Gronk could be a difference maker. Will LaFell get a 1 on 1 coverage and break one open?
Dec 7, 2014; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Seattle Seahawks cornerback Tharold Simon (27) intercepts a ball intended for Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver Riley Cooper (14) during the second half at Lincoln Financial Field. The Seahawks defeated the Eagles 24-14. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports
Don’t fall asleep on Ridley or Simon either. Bill Belichick likes to throw in a few wrinkles for big games, and you never know which role player is going to hear his number called. Ridley isn’t used a lot as a receiver but he has good hands, could he find a signature pass in his future?
Tharold Simon isn’t known as a ballhawk, his primary attributes are size, length, and ability to play the kind of aggressive man coverage the Seahawks favor, but LSU fans know that with his speed if the ball does find his hands he can break one. Will he pull a Tracy Porter and seal the game with one big play this Sunday?
What do you think LSU fans? Which Tiger is going to walk out of the Superbowl wearing a shiny new Championship Ring? Which is most likely to make the kind of Odell Beckham Jr. style big play that breaks the game open?
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inspired by ~jeftoon01
and his Twisted Princess collection.
Story made by ~Barricade379
Thanks to him
Twisted Disney collection :
Here the return of the vengeful ghost, the formeur princess of Arendelle Anna ! Story : When Anna was frozen completely, Hans got up quickly and pulled out a dagger and killed Elsa who was holding onto Anna's body. Kristoff then got into a fight with him. But Hans managed to injure him and Sven took Kristoff away. With both sisters gone, Hans' desire to be ruler of Arendelle came true. But the ghost of Anna lived on. Hanging on to the power of love for her sister and hatred for Hans, she came back as a snow spirit and scared everyone away. Hans was all alone now. She froze him with the powers that were once her sister's and now haunts Arendelle that the land belongs only to her and nobody else ...~Visit my tumblr kasami-sensei.tumblr.com/
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Apple has removed a security App from its app store claiming it’s misleading and confusing for users — The app was developed to inform users if they are being hacked and spied by malicious actors!
The usual search keywords on Google about hacking are hacking tools, how to hack or how to know if I am hacked. Well, one can’t find answers for every question but a German IT security researcher Stefan Esser developed an app informing users if their iPhone has been secretly hacked, jailbroken or being spied by malicious actors but it looks like Apple didn’t like the idea of ”information for all” and deleted the app because according to the Apple’s review team the System and Security info app didn’t compliance with the App store review guidelines.
[q]“And of course Apple waited with pulling the app until the media hype is over. They wanted media not to report about this.” Esser.[/q]
According to an email sent by Apple, Esser was told that his app provides inaccurate and misleading information to iOS users which may mislead or confuse users.
“We noticed that your app provides potentially inaccurate and misleading diagnostic functionally for iOS devices to users. Currently, there is no publicly available infrastructure to support iOS diagnostic analysis. Therefore, your app may report inaccurate information which could mislead or confuse users. We encourage you to review your app concept and incorporate different content and features that are in compliance with the app store review guidelines,” according to the email shared by Esser on his Twitter account.
HackRead got in touch with Mr. Esser who informed us about the app deletion on Twitter:
Apple killed the app. They do not want a security app on the store. — Stefan Esser (@i0n1c) May 15, 2016
Those searching for the app can see a popup message on App Store:
Here are some tweets shared by Mr. Esser on this issue:
Here. It basically says: we do not want our users to have the impression iOS could have security holes. go away. pic.twitter.com/7II1q96ZMt — Stefan Esser (@i0n1c) May 14, 2016
Fun fact: our app went 3 times though Apple review because of some bugfixes. Only in the 4 review it is suddenly considered unwanted. — Stefan Esser (@i0n1c) May 14, 2016
[fullsquaread][/fullsquaread]
Remember, Apple is not the only one to delete security apps from iOS store. In fact, in December 2015, Google also removed a cyber security app from Google Play store but after pressure from social media, the tech giant was forced to restore the app. However, in current scenario a smartphone carries most important and personal data of our lives including pictures, videos, location data, Google searches and financial information etc making it an easy target for cyber criminals and government-backed spies looking for money or your personal data. It’s important to know what’s going inside your device, especially for iPhone users who have been under the FBI’s eyes lately (San Bernardino Shooting Case is a good example from recent past). Hence, an app like System and Security info should be appreciated rather than censored.
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Decided to go ahead and compile a preview version of Beta 3 for players to try out. I’ve tested out many of the new features but there’s bound to be bugs and crashes remaining, please do report these and I’ll do my best to fix them. The Canadian campaign is not yet playable since it needs to be converted to the new XML format and given more narrative detail.
Download here
Edit 1: Hotfix applied to prevent a crash when enemy APCs tried to dismount infantry after being immobilized or destroyed. Same download link, replace your armcom.exe with the new file.
#### Beta 3.0 Changelog ##########
“Out of commission, become a pillbox. Out of ammo, become a bunker. Out of time, become heroes.” – Daskal, The Beast of War (1988)
General
– New function for displaying tutorial messages in a pop-up window: each message is only displayed once for each player, intended to help new players get accustomed to the game
– Now possible to start campaign at any point during the campaign calendar
– Highscores file is now a bones file
– also records information about dead crewmen
– Key commands now accepted in lower case or upper case format; eg. having caps lock engaged will no longer cause key commands to stop working
– Operation of alt key in main gun ammunition menu has changed to a toggle rather than a hold to modify
– New tank model: Sherman VC ‘Firefly’
– has a very powerful 76LL main gun, but no assistant driver position
– has access to ADPS ammo; similar to HVAP, but more plentiful in 1945
– never assigned as lead tank for the day, more likely to start encounters hull down and stopped, and tend to be at greater range from enemy units when they spawn
– however: 33% chance of a Tank, SPG, and AT Gun attacks against the lead tank will attack player tank instead, reflects the fact that Fireflies were targeted more often
– If player switches to a new tank without an assistant driver position, that crewman will be removed. If they switch to a new tank that does have such a position, a new crewman will be assigned.
– New Terrain type: Bocage
– worth 3 VP to capture
– much more likely for enemy vehicles to be hull down, spawn at closer ranges
– ambush at start of encounter much more likely
– same modifier to trigger a battle when moving into it as a village node
– more likely for player to start hull down too, gain hull down status when moving
– More detail for recording number of enemy units destroyed in campaign stats
– Crewmen that are KIA will be recorded in the bones file and displayed in the main menu screen
– Crewmen dialogue now displayed using the standard on-screen label function
– Purple Heart now only awarded for serious wound, very serious wound, or KIA
– Fixed a bug with displaying the campaign journal in-game, would crash if journal was shorter than window and player pressed PgUp
– Campaign map now stored in an .XP file and set in the campaign file
– Re-implemented the player location marker on the campaign map
– Main gun types now have standard display format in combat (ie 75LL gun displayed as 75mm)
– Campaigns can now add activation chance modifiers based on date, eg. to have tanks spawn less often later in the campaign
– Activation chance tables in campaign files don’t have to add up to 100 any more; whatever the total is will be used to determine spawn chance
– New sound effects for: adding/upgrading a crew skill, HE and AP hits, main gun miss
Campaign Day Map
– Any map nodes that are adjacent but cannot have a line drawn between node centres without passing through a 3rd node will no longer be linked up; produces more realistic connections on the campaign day map
– Boundary between friendly and hostile map areas now indicated with a red border line
– Selecting an adjacent area now cycles either clockwise or counterclockwise around the player
– Exit area moved random event will no longer trigger if player is within 2 nodes of current exit
– All mission locations will now be within 2 map nodes of player’s current position
– Selected map node will be cleared if a new map is generated (eg. moving to a new map after capturing the exit area)
– When a mission is assigned, the player’s view will be moved to the event node and it will be highlighted for a moment, then the message reporting on the mission will be displayed
Battle Encounters
– Fixed a bug where a successful Pocket Bible skill check would still result in crewman’s death
– Enemy units moving on the encounter map are no longer drawn with their terrain moving along with them
– Commonwealth (Canada only for now, but UK and others in future) get a bonus to all artillery attacks
– Enemy APCs will dismount any passengers if immobilized or destroyed; dismounted unit is automatically pinned
– Some changes to how battle information is reported:
– ‘Unknown’ enemy status is now called ‘Unspotted’, effect is the same as before
– Initial enemy spotted message now more simple; doesn’t bother reporting that the newly spawned unit is Unspotted because they all are at first
– When a crewmember is KIA or sent home, a notification window appears after the battle is over, and a report on their final stats is added to the campaign journal
– Added a line to campaign journal on whether crewman bails out successfully or not
– Gunner will sometimes call out ‘Firing’ just before firing the main gun
– If main gun is fired and loader reloads a different shell type, he will call this out
– Final to-hit score required must be 2 or more to get a critical hit (was previously an automatic hit regardless of required score)
– The Sector Control mechanic has been completely removed. This means that enemy units can spawn behind the player (although much more rarely than in front) and the result table for random events has been changed to remove the two events that impacted sector control.
– New animations for HE and AP hits on enemy units
– All results from tank movement, plus tank stopping in the case of driver incapacitation, are now displayed as pop-up messages. Tank movement is pretty important so this result deserves its own pop-up as opposed to being buried in the combat message window.
Known Bugs / Incomplete Features
– Player location marker on campaign map not yet fully implemented
– Canadian crewmen don’t have hometowns yet
– Still missing several sound effects
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With so many homes and neighborhoods deserted because of mandatory evacuations during Colorado's week-old High Park Fire, the local sheriff has a new worry: potential looters.
Police arrested a 30-year-old Denver man on Saturday for allegedly using phony firefighter credentials to enter the fire's restricted area. His truck displayed stolen government license plates, police said.
Michael Stillman at first evaded authorities but was found later that night at a local bar. He was arrested for impersonating a firefighter, theft and attempting to influence a public servant. Police say they found stolen property and a firearm in Stillman's car, although they did not say if it came from a home evacuated because of the fire.
A Larimer County Sheriff's Department statement said there were no confirmed cases of looting.
"Residents worried about looting in the fire area should be reassured there is a very strong law enforcement and National Guard presence to deter any such activity," according to the statement.
Officials said they are beefing up roving patrols and deploying mobile surveillance equipment to catch looters in the act.
"We have extra roving patrols to watch for looters," Larimer County Sheriff Justin Smith said at a briefing. "If someone's sneaking around back there, we'll find them."
Stillman is currently in a Larimer County Jail, pending setting of bond, according to the local sheriff's office.
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Story highlights "We must investigate" the claims, Nigeria's minister of state for defense says
Jonathan believes the girls are still in the Nigeria, despite U.S. assessment
Nigerian forces had warning of Boko Haram attack on school, Amnesty says
U.S. and British teams arrived to help Nigeria plan the fight against Boko Haram
What did the Nigerian government know about the mass abduction of schoolgirls by Boko Haram militants, and when did it know it?
Those are the tough questions being asked after an explosive report made public Friday accused Nigerian military commanders of knowing the terror group was on its way to raid a boarding school in the town of Chibok at least four hours before 276 girls were abducted.
The findings by human rights group Amnesty International echo accounts of a number of the parents and villagers, who have described to CNN an ineffective military response in the days and weeks after the girls were abducted.
President Goodluck Jonathan's government vowed to investigate the allegations even as it defended its military response and questioned the motive behind the accounts.
"This is really outrageous, unbelievable," Minister of Information Labaran Maku told CNN.
The moment the Nigerian government heard of the abduction, "we went in to action," Maku said. "...We shouldn't turn this into a trial of the Nigerian government."
JUST WATCHED New fears for kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH New fears for kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls 02:42
Photos: Bring Back Our Girls Photos: Bring Back Our Girls 'Bring Back Our Girls!' – Weeks after the April 14 kidnapping of more than 200 Nigerian girls, worried families and supporters blamed the government for not doing enough to find them. Their cries spread worldwide on social media under the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls. From regular people to celebrities, here are some of the people participating in the movement. Hide Caption 1 of 13 Photos: Bring Back Our Girls 'Bring Back Our Girls!' – First Lady Michelle Obama tweeted this picture of herself holding a #BringBackOurGirls sign in support of the schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram in Nigeria. Hide Caption 2 of 13 Photos: Bring Back Our Girls 'Bring Back Our Girls!' – "We hear it like it's not happening in our region so it doesn't concern us but that's not right," says Milliscent Maduagwu from Port Harcourt, Nigeria. "This fight on terrorism is not just the Commander in Chief's and the army, but ours as well!" Hide Caption 3 of 13 Photos: Bring Back Our Girls 'Bring Back Our Girls!' – "These girls could have been my sisters or worst still my daughter," says Emmanuel Oleabhiele from Doha, Qatar. "My daughter is 6 months old and I fear for her future as a Nigerian." Hide Caption 4 of 13 Photos: Bring Back Our Girls 'Bring Back Our Girls!' – Malala Yousafzai, the world's most famous advocate for girls' right to education, says that "girls in Nigeria are my sisters." This photo was posted to the @MalalaFund Twitter account on May 6. Hide Caption 5 of 13 Photos: Bring Back Our Girls 'Bring Back Our Girls!' – Ify Elueze of Bonn, Germany, asks, "How can the world sit and watch?! It is no longer just the responsibility of the Nigerian government, now it is your responsibility and mine!" Hide Caption 6 of 13 Photos: Bring Back Our Girls 'Bring Back Our Girls!' – British supermodel Cara Delevingne posted this photo on her Instagram account saying, "Everyone help and raise awareness #regram #repost or make your own!" Hide Caption 7 of 13 Photos: Bring Back Our Girls 'Bring Back Our Girls!' – "Government should stop playing politics with our sister[s]," says Nigerian Dauda Kaks Hide Caption 8 of 13 Photos: Bring Back Our Girls 'Bring Back Our Girls!' – American singer-songwriter Alicia Keys posted this photo on her Instagram account with this message: "I'm so saddened and enraged that these girls are not back where they belong! Safe at home and at school! Safe with their families! Safe to become the incredible leaders and powerful voices they are yet to be." Hide Caption 9 of 13 Photos: Bring Back Our Girls 'Bring Back Our Girls!' – "You are most likely thinking to yourself, 'What's the point in posting another picture or status to speak about this issue?,"' says Uchenna Mildred Udeh from St. John, New Brunswick. "I can tell you this: it will. Do not underestimate the power of your voice. We have to make this personal." Hide Caption 10 of 13 Photos: Bring Back Our Girls 'Bring Back Our Girls!' – British singer-songwriter Leona Lewis took a stand to #BringBackOurGirls on her Twitter account on May 7. Hide Caption 11 of 13 Photos: Bring Back Our Girls 'Bring Back Our Girls!' – "I think it's high time we all start praying for Nigeria and stop complaining," says Lotanna Ugwu from Abuja, Nigeria. "It's only God that can touch the hearts of those who kidnapped the young girls." Hide Caption 12 of 13 Photos: Bring Back Our Girls Bring Back Our Girls – Singer Steven Tyler posted this image on both his Twitter and Instagram accounts alonth with the hashtag #RealMenDontBuyGirls. Hide Caption 13 of 13
JUST WATCHED How do we track down abducted girls? Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH How do we track down abducted girls? 05:41
Map: Where the girls were kidnapped
Even as he vowed an investigation into the claims, Maku said it was "inconceivable" that soldiers on duty would not respond to a potential attack on a school.
Hours after Nigeria's defense ministry dismissed the report's findings as "unfortunate and untrue," the country's minister of state for defense vowed to get to the bottom of the allegation.
"We must investigate and ensure we get to the root of it," Musiliu Olatunde Obanikoro told CNN. "And any necessary actions will be taken to ensure such a thing doesn't reoccur."
'No reinforcements'
Scrutiny of the government's response has escalated amid international outrage over the mass abduction, with many asking why Nigeria did not mount a larger response or ask for international help.
The Amnesty International report alleges that after Nigerian commanders were informed of the pending attack, they were unable to raise enough troops to respond.
The commanders left a contingent of between 15 and 17 soldiers and a handful of police officers in Chibok to fend off the militants, the group reported.
"When it was clear these girls had been abducted, no reinforcements were sent to the town," Makmid Kamara, a researcher with Amnesty International, told CNN.
The report was based on the reports of more than a dozen people, including two senior Nigerian military officials, who gave varying, but consistent accounts, Kamara said.
But Nigeria's defense ministry disputed the findings, saying the first word received was of an ongoing attack at Chibok.
The troops "did not receive four hours forewarning about the attacks," according to a statement released by Maj. Gen. Chris Olukolade, a ministry spokesman. "Rather, they received information of an ongoing attack on Chibok from troops on patrol" who saw the attack and took on the militants.
Borno state Sen. Ahmed Zannah said Friday that the military sent reinforcements, but not until the militants were already in Chibok.
'The soldiers were not there'
As many as 200 Boko Haram fighters carried out the Chibok school raid, Amnesty reported, herding the girls out of bed under the cover of darkness after a firefight with the handful of security forces in the town.
The Nigerian government has claimed it responded, with troops, helicopters and airplanes in the immediate aftermath of the mass abduction.
But the father of two of the girls taken told CNN there has been little sign of military help.
He said first learned of the attack in a telephone call from a friend in Chibok, who told him the town was under attack by Boko Haram.
"Pray for us," the friend told the father, whose identity is being withheld out of a fear of possible reprisal by Boko Haram and the government.
The next day, the father learned his daughters and three nieces had been snatched.
He and his family sought out the help of the military in the area. But, he says, "the soldiers were not there."
Days later, a meeting was called by the elders of Chibok. "They said the army will be there and a civilian detail will be there -- to accompany us into the bush" to search for the girls, he said.
But no military or government officials showed up, he said.
"Nothing. Nothing. Up to 21 days, nothing has been done," he said.
'Unfair' criticism
Nigerian officials have frequently been criticized for failing to prevent Boko Haram's deadly attacks, particularly in the terror group's stronghold of northeastern Nigeria.
Obanikoro, the minister of state for defense, called the criticism "grossly unfair."
At least 2,000 people have died in violence in northern Nigeria this year alone, Amnesty said. The most recent Boko Haram attack killed at least 310 people in a town that had been used as a staging ground for troops searching for the missing girls.
JUST WATCHED Former Boko Haram hostage speaks out Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Former Boko Haram hostage speaks out 02:09
JUST WATCHED Freed Nigerian girls speak about attack Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Freed Nigerian girls speak about attack 01:57
Photos: Photos: Nigerians protest over kidnapped girls Photos: Photos: Nigerians protest over kidnapped girls Nigerians protest over kidnapped schoolgirls – Police in riot gear block a route in Abuja, Nigeria, on Tuesday, October 14, during a demonstration calling on the Nigerian government to rescue schoolgirls kidnapped by the Islamist militant group Boko Haram. In April, more than 200 girls were abducted from their boarding school in northeastern Nigeria, officials and witnesses said. Hide Caption 1 of 19 Photos: Photos: Nigerians protest over kidnapped girls Nigerians protest over kidnapped schoolgirls – Women in Abuja hold a candlelight vigil on Wednesday, May 14, one month after the schoolgirls were kidnapped. Hide Caption 2 of 19 Photos: Photos: Nigerians protest over kidnapped girls Nigerians protest over kidnapped schoolgirls – People march in Lagos, Nigeria, on Monday, May 12, to demand the release of the kidnapped schoolgirls. Hide Caption 3 of 19 Photos: Photos: Nigerians protest over kidnapped girls Nigerians protest over kidnapped schoolgirls – Catholic faithful in Abuja take Holy Communion and pray for the safety of the kidnapped schoolgirls on Sunday, May 11. Hide Caption 4 of 19 Photos: Photos: Nigerians protest over kidnapped girls Nigerians protest over kidnapped schoolgirls – Catholic faithful attend a morning Mass in honor of the kidnapped schoolgirls in Abuja on May 11. Hide Caption 5 of 19 Photos: Photos: Nigerians protest over kidnapped girls Nigerians protest over kidnapped schoolgirls – Catholics nuns pray in Abuja on May 11. Hide Caption 6 of 19 Photos: Photos: Nigerians protest over kidnapped girls Nigerians protest over kidnapped schoolgirls – A woman attends a demonstration Tuesday, May 6, that called for the Nigerian government to rescue the girls. Hide Caption 7 of 19 Photos: Photos: Nigerians protest over kidnapped girls Nigerians protest over kidnapped schoolgirls – Community leader Hosea Sambido speaks during a May 6 rally in Abuja. Hide Caption 8 of 19 Photos: Photos: Nigerians protest over kidnapped girls Nigerians protest over kidnapped schoolgirls – Brig. Gen. Chris Olukolade, Nigeria's top military spokesman, speaks to people at a demonstration May 6 in Abuja. Hide Caption 9 of 19 Photos: Photos: Nigerians protest over kidnapped girls Nigerians protest over kidnapped schoolgirls – Women march Monday, May 5, in Chibok, Nigeria. Hide Caption 10 of 19 Photos: Photos: Nigerians protest over kidnapped girls Nigerians protest over kidnapped schoolgirls – People rally in Lagos on Thursday, May 1. Hide Caption 11 of 19 Photos: Photos: Nigerians protest over kidnapped girls Nigerians protest over kidnapped schoolgirls – Police stand guard during a demonstration in Lagos on May 1. Hide Caption 12 of 19 Photos: Photos: Nigerians protest over kidnapped girls Nigerians protest over kidnapped schoolgirls – Protesters take part in a "million-woman march" Wednesday, April 30, in Abuja. Hide Caption 13 of 19 Photos: Photos: Nigerians protest over kidnapped girls Nigerians protest over kidnapped schoolgirls – Obiageli Ezekwesili, former Nigerian education minister and vice president of the World Bank's Africa division, leads a march of women in Abuja on April 30. Hide Caption 14 of 19 Photos: Photos: Nigerians protest over kidnapped girls Nigerians protest over kidnapped schoolgirls – A woman cries out during a demonstration in Abuja on Tuesday, April 29, along with other mothers whose daughters have been kidnapped. Hide Caption 15 of 19 Photos: Photos: Nigerians protest over kidnapped girls Nigerians protest over kidnapped schoolgirls – A man weeps as he joins parents of the kidnapped girls during a meeting with the Borno state governor in Chibok on Tuesday, April 22. Hide Caption 16 of 19 Photos: Photos: Nigerians protest over kidnapped girls Nigerians protest over kidnapped schoolgirls – Mothers weep April 22 during a meeting with the Borno state governor in Chibok. Hide Caption 17 of 19 Photos: Photos: Nigerians protest over kidnapped girls Nigerians protest over kidnapped schoolgirls – Four female students who were abducted by gunmen and reunited with their families walk in Chibok on Monday, April 21. Hide Caption 18 of 19 Photos: Photos: Nigerians protest over kidnapped girls Nigerians protest over kidnapped schoolgirls – Borno state Gov. Kashim Shettima, center, visits the girls' school in Chibok on April 21. Hide Caption 19 of 19
U.S. and British officials have arrived in Abuja to supplement a U.S. team already on the ground there, according to officials.
They will help Nigeria's government look for the missing girls, plan rescue missions and advise on ways to subdue Boko Haram.
"This isn't time for a blame game. We are happy help is coming," Obanikoro said.
U.S. officials, at least, say they are unlikely to commit troops to combat operations.
And it's unclear if Nigeria would allow U.S. or U.K. troops on the ground. "We know the experiences the two nations are bringing to the table, and we intend to ensure that that wealth of experience is" used to bring about an end to the situation, Obanikoro said.
'Many soldiers are afraid'
According to Amnesty, civilian officials in a nearby town and leaders of an armed vigilante group organized by the military informed nearby military posts that armed militants had passed through on their way to Chibok hours before the April 14 assault on the boarding school.
The human rights group said an official in the village of Gagilam told its investigators that residents had spoken of strangers who passed through on motorcycles, saying they were on their way to Chibok. The group cited another official as saying the men had asked herders for directions to the school.
The group also cited unnamed senior Nigerian commanders as saying they were aware of the attack even before the calls from the civilian leaders and vigilante groups. But they weren't able to muster enough troops to respond, Amnesty cited the commanders as saying.
"There's a lot of frustration, exhaustion and fatigue among officers and (troops) based in the hotspots," Amnesty quoted one of the unnamed commanders as saying. "Many soldiers are afraid to go to the battle fronts."
Where are the girls?
Boko Haram's leader, Abubakar Shekau, took credit for the mass kidnappings in a video that surfaced this week. He said he planned to sell the girls into slavery.
A few escapees shared harrowing tales of escaping into a nearby forest.
U.S. Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby, who serves as Pentagon press secretary, said officials believe the girls "have been broken up into smaller groups" but declined to detail how they came to the conclusion. His sentiment has been echoed by others.
"The search must be in Niger, Cameroon and Chad, to see if we can find information," said Gordon Brown, a former UK prime minister and the U.N.'s special envoy for global education.
But Jonathan believes the girls are still in Nigeria, somewhere in the Sambisa forest.
"If they move that number of girls into Cameroon, people will see. So I believe they are still in Nigeria," he said.
International outrage has escalated over the nation's largely ineffective effort to subdue Boko Haram.
Amnesty is not the first to accuse Nigeria of failing to take enough action to stop the Chibok raid or other attacks, or to stage a forceful enough response in the aftermath.
Jonathan waited three weeks before speaking to the nation on the matter. He said that rescue efforts were under way at the time but that they could not be disclosed publicly.
"In a hostage situation, time is of the essence," Kirby said. "We lost some time."
International response
The international effort to buttress that fight ratcheted up Friday with the arrival of U.S. and British advisers.
Six U.S. military advisers arrived Friday, a U.S. official told CNN. They will join a team of U.S. and British officials already in Nigeria, helping find the girls, planning rescue efforts and devising strategies to help subdue Boko Haram.
A British team drawn from the country's Department for International Development, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Ministry of Defence also arrived in Abuja on Friday, the British foreign office said.
France also said it is sending a team but didn't provide specifics on what expertise it will bring.
British satellites and advanced tracking capabilities also will be used, and China has promised to provide any intelligence gathered by its satellite network, Nigeria said.
There are no plans to send U.S. combat troops, Kirby said.
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NEW YORK/BOSTON (Reuters) - A growing number of U.S. companies, including MillerCoors and AIG, are stepping up the battle against online ad fraud by demanding proof that their ads have been seen by real people instead of computers hijacked by cybercriminals.
The AIG logo is seen at its building in New York's financial district March 19, 2015. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
Spurred by a warning in December by the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) that businesses are losing $6.3 billion a year to so-called “click fraud,” these companies now stipulate in advertising contracts that they will only pay for online ads when given proof that humans clicked on them.
“We don’t want to be paying for non-human traffic,” said Mark Clowes, global head of advertising at American International Group Inc (AIG.N), the largest commercial insurer in the country.
In a typical click fraud scheme, a crook infects many computers with malicious software, and directs the machines - called bots - to visit a webpage, click on an ad or watch a video. The fake traffic fools a marketer into thinking the site is popular, so it pays to place ads and links on the site.
A study conducted by cybersecurity firm White Ops for the ANA found that bots viewed almost one-fourth of online video ads and 11 percent of display ads. The study, published in December, involved 36 participants including AIG and MillerCoors SAB.L (TAP.N).
While click fraud has been going on for years, the ANA report has galvanized advertisers to fight back, ad executives said. What had been a trickle of references in contracts is becoming a flood.
“We’ve written into all of our contracts that our clients insist on at least 95 percent human traffic and anything less requires a make good or credit,” said Barry Lowenthal, president of The Media Kitchen, an ad buying agency whose clients include Victoria’s Secret Pink.
“By the end of 2015 we expect that every major agency and every major advertiser will include these kinds of clauses in their terms and conditions.”
WEB PUBLISHERS AT RISK
U.S. digital advertising revenue is expected to reach $59 billion this year, according to eMarketer.
Online ads are sold through a complex, opaque system that can involve many parties including advertising agencies, website publishers and automated ad exchanges - the middlemen who aggregate and resell ad space across many websites.
Website publishers often pay third parties to direct visitors to their sites, a practice known as "source traffic." According to the 57-page ANA study, about half of all click fraud came from publishers paying for third-party traffic providers. (bit.ly/1Gj8wfI)
As advertisers crack down on click fraud, website publishers could suffer in the short term, said ANA Executive Vice President Bill Duggan.
Smaller publishers, in particular, would likely find it difficult to quickly respond to pressure from advertisers to eliminate bots. On average it costs up to 3 percent of a digital campaign to sweep the traffic.
An industry attorney said some publishers are not happy with the new contracts, which shift fraud costs to them from advertisers.
“You cannot inject a new risk module without having somebody squirm,” said Joseph Rosenbaum, a partner at Reed Smith LLP. “Nobody likes to have additional liability.”
Scott Cunningham, senior vice president at the Interactive Advertising Bureau, which represents some 600 website publishers, disagreed. He said the responsibility falls “squarely” on publishers.
“Your inventory is competing with criminal inventory. You absolutely have every obligation,” Cunningham said.
Representatives for major website publishers Google Inc (GOOGL.O), Facebook Inc (FB.O), Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O), Yahoo Inc YHOO.O and AOL Inc AOL.N said they have been aggressively working to combat click fraud for several years.
AOL and Facebook said the new advertising contracts had not hurt revenue. Microsoft, Yahoo and Google declined to comment.
FIGHTING FRAUD
Firms that audit traffic include White Ops, DoubleVerify, Integral Ad Science and Moat Inc.
OpenX, an advertising exchange that uses algorithms to buy and sell ads, said it took a 15 percent hit to revenue growth in 2013 after investing heavily to clean up its traffic. Growth was back on track by 2014 and OpenX spends more than $1 million each year to ensure traffic quality, it said.
A sign is seen outside the MillerCoors corporate offices in Golden, Colorado February 12, 2014. REUTERS/Rick Wilking
Concerns about click fraud have prompted some advertisers and website publishers to form an alliance in December.
“This is the No. 1 industry priority right now,” said Mike Zaneis, interim head of the alliance, known as the Trustworthy Accountability Group. Board members include executives from Facebook, McDonald’s Corp (MCD.N), Procter & Gamble Co (PG.N), Publicis Groupe SA (PUBP.PA) and WPP Plc (WPP.L).
“It’s gaining momentum,” Zaneis said.
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Welcome to the end of the world!
MINECRAFT SERVERS (1.7.9)
us1.vaast.org
us1.vaast.org eu1.vaast.org
eu1.vaast.org aus.vaast.org
Creepers, spiders, skeletons and of course lots and lots of zombies roam this wasteland. This map is a custom-generated decaying metropolis, with every structure designed by hand, unlike most generic Minecraft worlds. Inside every building you will find treasure and gear to keep you alive but also many dangers. Over 500 unique builds are used in our custom world generator plugin to generate a hand-crafted procedural metropolis the likes none have ever made before.The gameplay is quite simple. Survive on your own terms with your own set of morals. Kill others to live, or join up with other survivors to form communal groups for protection from the undead hordes and other players.Visit the official subreddit for community discussion http://www.reddit.com/r/vaast and make sure you’ve registered an account on our website with your minecraft username so we can keep in touch about future updates.
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Mark Murphy and his staff are getting ready for something big in 2018 and 2019. Next year, the Packers will enter their 100th season as a franchise and they will follow that up with their birthday on Aug. 11, 2019.
And now we know a little big about the Packers plans for both.
Murphy answered questions from fans on Packers.com last week and one fan wanted to know if he should make a trip to Green Bay in 2018, 2019, 2021 which is the 100th anniversary of the Packers joining the NFL or 2023 which is the 100th anniversary of Packers first share issue. Here's what Murphy had to say.
We’re very excited about our upcoming anniversary (you only turn 100 once), and have been planning ways that we can celebrate the anniversary for a couple of years now. We will soon announce our specific plans, so I can’t get into details, but I can tell you that we will have celebrations throughout the entire 2018 season, our 100th season. We will have a special celebration on August 11, 2019, our 100th birthday. We haven’t planned anything special yet for 1923.
The Packers are now in the offseason and there’s a lot of work to be done to get ready for next season. Make sure you’re in the loop – take five seconds to Sign up for our FREE Packers newsletter now!
It looks like the Packers have some big plans for next season, which is understandable considering the history of the franchise. But what would make the celebration great is the Packers winning the Super Bowl this season because the home opener in 2018 would arguably be the biggest event in the history of Green Bay.
Be sure to follow Brian Jones on Twitter: @BrianJones247
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With Blake Judd’s ongoing addictions finally leading to his arrest and subsequent vow to get sober once and for all, the Nachtmystium mastermind is now saying the band is done for good. He’s posted the below message on his Facebook page…
…along with this live footage:
I’m a massive Nachtmystium fan, but this doesn’t get me down too much. For one thing, it’s not the first time Judd has said the band was over. For another, EVERYONE reunites sooner or later, save for the original Guns N’ Roses. And for another other thing, Blake Judd IS Nachtmystium. He can revive it at pretty much any point he wants, and there’s an argument to be made that any metal he makes in the future will, in effect, be Nachtmystium by another name (hopefully smelling as sweet).
And even if this the end, well, at least we those final two releases to look forward to.
Discuss amongst yourselves.
Thanks: Stephen P.
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Published: July 24, 2014 Updated: July 4, 2017
Let's try and guess how many almonds can this chipmunk stuff in her cheeks? Press play and start counting.
In the mean time, did you know that a chipmunk's cheeks can expand to three times the size of its head and they have pouches in their cheeks where they hold their food until they get back to store it in their burrows? Also, a single chipmunk can store up to 8lbs of food in a burrow!
Cheek pouches are pockets on both sides of the head of some mammals between the jaw and the cheek. They can be found on mammals including the platypus, some rodents, and most monkeys, as well as the marsupial koala. The cheek pouches of chipmunks can reach the size of their body when full.
The pouches have several roles; they allow the rapid collection of food, but also serve as temporary storage and transport. Cheek pouches contribute to the protection of animals by allowing them to carry their food in the pouches to shelter, allowing them to transport their food to safer locations, as they are pressing these pouches to the back of the mouth with the back of the leg, or moving the jaw. (source: Wikipedia)
We lost count of how many almonds this little fella managed to stuff in her cheeks, but we're sure that'll last her a few meals! Filmed in St-Colomban, Quebec, Canada.
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New York City is full of suspension bridges—Brooklyn, Manhattan, Williamsburg, George Washington, Triborough, Verrazano-Narrows, Whitestone Bridge, and the Throgs Neck. But which one was built first? And which one is the newest of the bunch?
New York's oldest suspension bridge is also its most popular. The Brooklyn Bridge was designed by German engineer and famed bridge architect John Augustus Roebling, and it was the first East River crossing to connect Brooklyn with lower Manhattan. After 24 years of construction, the bridge opened in 1883 and for a while, it was the longest suspension bridge of its time. Today, the approximately 1.1 mile long bridge is one of New York City’s most visited and recognized landmarks. So much so, that the Department of Transportation is even considering expanding the bridge’s pedestrian paths to alleviate congestion from all those visitors.
The young'un of the group would be the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, simply referred to as the Verrazano by many New Yorkers. It was designed by Swiss-American engineer Othmar Ammann, and was the last major city project to be overseen by the ever-controversial Robert Moses. The double-decker bridge connects Brooklyn to Staten Island and is the longest bridge in New York City—and, indeed, the entire country. Opening in two phases, the upper level debuted in 1964, and the lower opened five years later in 1969. It’s named after Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano—though his name is famously spelled wrong, causing people to ask MTA to fix the error. Though there aren’t any pedestrian pathways on the Verrazano Bridge, the site is occasionally opened up to pedestrians during big events like the annual TCS New York City Marathon.
The two bridges vary greatly in style; the Brooklyn Bridge features Gothic-style archways, stone anchorages, and a wood-planked pedestrian pathway. The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge has towering anchorages as well but its design is more minimalist, though it's illuminated by 262 LED lights that really make it sparkle in the night.
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ON THE slopes of Mt Lindsay in Tasmania’s Tarkine wilderness, Ruth Groom runs her hand over a myrtle tree’s huge trunk, soaking in the magnificent rainforest. Below her feet, buried deep, is one of the largest undeveloped tin resources in the world.
Groom, who works for the Wilderness Society, is one of many environmental campaigners arguing against further mining in this part of Tasmania’s northwest. Meanwhile, exploration company Venture Minerals plans to develop a world-class tin and tungsten mine on the site where she is standing. Venture has applied for a total lease area of 1029 hectares (about 515 times the size of the Melbourne Cricket Ground) to develop the Mt Lindsay mine, which would contain a 40-hectare open-cut pit 220 metres in depth. “The impact is massive. The area will never have the same biodiversity,” says Groom.
Mt Lindsay is one of multiple new mines of various sizes proposed for the Tarkine region, leaving Tasmania with a choice to be made. The state is faced with potentially sacrificing a unique wilderness area to entrench its mining industry, or ensuring the Tarkine’s preservation, possibly at the expense of significant investment in Tasmania during the current mineral boom.
The decision comes at a particularly sensitive time. Tasmania’s economy is the weakest in Australia and its unemployment rates are the highest in the country, particularly in the northwest. The Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s chief economist, Phil Bayley, cites a number of contributors to Tasmania’s struggles – including job losses in manufacturing and forestry, and long-term issues such as an underperforming education system at both school and tertiary level. “Money won’t necessarily fix it,” he says. “There are no silver bullets. But there are opportunities and the mining sector is one of them.”
THE Tarkine is an expansive wilderness region renowned for its contrasting, connected landscapes. It contains the largest cool temperate rainforest in Australia – the second-largest in the southern hemisphere. The rainforest’s flora is of ancient descent and can be traced to the continent of Gondwana, which existed hundreds of millions of years ago. Similar rainforest once dominated the southern hemisphere, but now only small tracts remain in southern parts of Australia, as well as New Zealand, Siberia and North America.
The Tarkine showcases rarities of geological significance, such as magnesite karst caves. Its tall eucalypt forests are home to the endangered wedge-tailed eagle and threatened owls. Its commanding coastline supports white-bellied sea eagles and significant Aboriginal relics; and the abundant waterways are home to the giant freshwater crayfish, the largest freshwater invertebrate in the world. Its vast buttongrass plains are home to diverse ecosystems, and the Tarkine is also the last area where the state’s endemic Tasmanian devil survives free from the devil facial tumour disease.
The wilderness area between the Arthur River and the Pieman River was nominated for permanent national heritage listing last year. The Australian Heritage Council recommended 433,000 hectares of the Tarkine be recognised for outstanding heritage values. Former federal environment minister Tony Burke rejected the full recommendation, but listed a strip of 21,000 hectares along the coast, to protect Aboriginal heritage.
The chair of the Australian Heritage Council, Carmen Lawrence, has publicly voiced her disappointment with Burke’s decision. She says those who deny the Tarkine’s value misjudge the diligent nature of heritage assessments. “They must have their eyes closed and ears plugged. The evidence is there too, it’s not just a matter of sentiment.”
The extensive area recommended for heritage listing is largely untouched by human activity, besides the extremely small-scale mining and selective logging of early prospectors. “We were very careful not to include areas of degradation,” Lawrence says.
Lawrence warns that by refusing to acknowledge the Tarkine’s heritage values, Australia risks losing a rare gem. She says the Tarkine is of international significance and to damage it would be a global tragedy. “It has unique biodiversity and a history that is global in its import. That’s why people have suggested that it should be World Heritage listed. The Kimberley has similar character.”
Some opponents of the heritage recommendation were concerned that a listing would exclude mining from the area and threaten the 581 employees at Grange Resources’ Savage River mine, located at the centre of the Tarkine. But Lawrence clarifies that existing mining operations were omitted from the heritage recommendation. She says views that mining would be excluded are incorrect. “When people talk about locking things up they are misreading the legislation. These listings are not a barrier to other activity.”
Instead, a national heritage listing requires that an area’s values be duly considered when proposals are brought to the table. Lawrence says the Tarkine’s irrefutable values should be properly recognised. “If you wanted to mine under the Opera House you would be told to go away.”
But the state government argued in a submission to minister Tony Burke that heritage listing the Tarkine would have a significant impact on investment in the state. Interest in northwest Tasmania’s mineral resources has increased considerably with a rise in metal prices. The government said “increased approval times” resulting from heritage listing would complicate access to resources and encourage companies and investors to source minerals overseas instead. The government’s submission cited multiple expressions of concern from existing and interested mining companies, including established miners worried that a listing would prevent them expanding or adapting their operations.
The largest of the new mining proposals currently on the table are Shree Minerals’ recently reapproved iron ore project at Nelson Bay River (its original approval was challenged and overthrown in the Federal Court because of concern for the Tasmanian devil) and Venture Minerals’ Mt Lindsay tin/tungsten mine.
Shree estimates that its iron ore mine would employ 125 full-time workers, including contractors, and return about $80 million a year. Venture Minerals predicts that its Mt Lindsay mine would employ 1000 people for eighteen months, then sixty employees from then on, and claims that the project would produce about $100 million a year for the Tasmanian economy.
The Tasmanian Minerals Council chief executive officer, Terry Long, says that if new mining projects don’t come to fruition the northwest would lose a substantial opportunity. He stresses that indirect benefit should also be considered. Long says that a survey commissioned by the Tasmanian Minerals Council found that mining and mineral processing operations spent $800 million on goods and services in Tasmania in 2010–11. “If mines want electrical material, pipes, design and construct engineers, freight, someone to clean the offices – they contract that out. That is why [mines] are important to a regional economy.”
Of Venture Minerals’ three projects currently proposed – Mt Lindsay plus the Riley Creek iron ore mine and the Mt Livingstone hematite mine – two will be totally exhausted in two years and are intended to fund the major Mt Lindsay project. The company’s bankable feasibility study of the proposed Mt Lindsay mine identifies a nine-year mine life based on presently known resources at current mineral prices. But Long emphasises that the Mt Lindsay mine’s predicted lifespan is not necessarily a maximum. He says because mineral exploration is an expensive undertaking, it is standard for companies to lock in a shorter period, then expand.
A director of the Tasmanian Minerals Council, geologist Kim Denwer, says that there is no way of determining for sure a mine’s longevity, as the operations are dependent on a finite resource. But he says the impressive lifespans of existing mines on the west coast are indicative. “One of the things Tasmania is very spoilt with is tremendous ore bodies. In the mid 1980s, the Rosebery deposit was known to have twenty million tonnes, but in the last thirty years an additional thirty-four million tonnes of ore has been discovered.”
Denwer acknowledges that a mine’s endurance is also dependent on fluctuations in metal prices. “The Renison mine on the west coast has opened and closed in the last ten years with the major fluctuations in the tin price,” he says. But Denwer believes that the currently high tin price will be sustained for a considerable period, now that Europe has banned lead solder in its electrical products. “The only alternative to lead solder is tin solder,” Denwer says.
The Tasmanian Minerals Council believes that the resource base in northwest Tasmania is one of the most promising in the world for its size. Denwer says the northwest has a rare opportunity to benefit from the new demand for metals such as tin and tungsten, because of its diverse selection of minerals. “The iron ore deposits of Western Australia are probably worth more, but here we have so many different elements enriched in the crust,” he says.
The state government’s submission to the federal environment minister stated that if a heritage listing prohibited new mines there would be an eventual decline in the mining industry. Denwer agrees that despite the typically long life of Tasmania’s existing mines, new mining is essential for the industry’s advancement. “Growing the business and replacing old resources – that’s where the Venture and Shree projects are the future of the mining industry.”
Seventy-three per cent of the state’s mining industry operates on the west coast, and largely supports mining towns such as Queenstown, Waratah, Tullah, Rosebery and Zeehan. According to economist Phil Bayley, the total mining sector added $402 million to the Tasmanian economy in 2011–12. Tasmanian resources minister Bryan Green told the Mercury that mining royalties are now ten times more valuable to Tasmania than they were a decade ago.
Open-cut mine at Savage River.
Brent Melton
THE Australian Workers’ Union, or AWU, has held two rallies in the northwest in support of mining – rallies explicitly supported by the state government. The first assembly saw people gather in Burnie, the west coast’s port and urban centre, in November last year. Pro-mining supporters congregated again on 25 May in Tullah, a small community of 250 nestled amid rocky mountains on the fringe of the Tarkine.
The AWU, through its campaign Our Tarkine, Our Future, has accused those fighting for the protection of the Tarkine of trying to shut down the mining industry. Signs reading “Unlock Tasmania, lock up the Greens,” “Get rid of Green parasites before they destroy Tasmania” and “Save the Tassie miner from extinction” were raised at Tullah. Rosebery miner Kim McDermott told the crowd that protection of the area would render the region an “economic wasteland.”
Conservationists have stated repeatedly that they are not opposed to existing mines like Savage River. Winding her car through the mountains towards Tullah, the Wilderness Society’s Ruth Groom emphasises that her desire to protect Tasmania’s natural assets does not signal a disregard for the people of the northwest. “I’m from the northwest. I’m a Burnie girl who grew up here and I certainly feel very deeply for the people of the west coast,” she says, “People are desperate for economic opportunities.”
Passionate about Tasmania, Groom accepts that mining is part of the west coast’s future, but she hopes for a transition towards renewables on a broader scale. “The Tarkine is just a completely inappropriate place for mining. At some point we are going to have to find alternatives anyway, because we are relying on finite resources.”
AT THE abandoned Mt Cleveland tin mine, near the ghost town of Luina in the Tarkine, the gurgling, polluted streams stink of sulphur. The underground mine, closed in 1986, is currently leaching acid from its former tailings dam into the Whyte River, causing a six-kilometre dead spot that supports no aquatic life. Bright Phase Resources – an Australian mineral resource development company – has proposed a new project to extract additional tin from the Mt Cleveland mine and rehabilitate it. Mancala, another mining company, is looking to re-mine and rehabilitate a legacy site at Burns Peak.
Scott Jordan, of Save the Tarkine, supports proposals to re-mine and remediate previous mining sites in the area. He says the projects would deliver economic benefit and a substantial number of jobs, without affecting undisturbed areas. “Where we draw the line is new mines in wilderness areas creating entirely new legacy issues.”
But Tasmanian economist Bruce Felmingham, in a report commissioned by the Tasmanian Minerals Council, argues that if the mining industry does not grow as predicted – a growth dependent on new prospects – it may not have the same capacity to replace existing mines. Felmingham believes significant growth in mining could also absorb some of the impact of the eventual closure of the state’s existing mineral processors, which have acknowledged a decline. “I don’t know of any economy in the world that is not making some kind of transition right now – it’s not unique to Tasmania. Tasmania’s transition probably means the phasing out of the current mineral processors. But it also means we need to replace that loss in production.”
Environmental campaigners have proposed developing tourism as an economic alternative to mining in the Tarkine. The Tourism and Transport Forum – an industry group – says that tourism is an important industry in Tasmania, directly employing about 15,000 people. The forum’s director of research and strategy, Adele Labine-Romain, says tourism contributes about $2 billion annually to the state’s economy, driven by Tasmania’s nature-based product, which differentiates it from other states. There is an increasing sphere of tourism dedicated to the preservation of the environment.
Tourism in the northwest is underdeveloped compared with other regions. In 2008, the Cradle Coast Authority – an organisation created by the northwest’s nine councils – identified a huge potential for tourism in the Tarkine. It developed the Tarkine Tourism Development Strategy based on market research and investigations of latent demand. It found that the Tarkine had an “unrivalled opportunity to ‘raise the bar’ in responsible, ecologically sustainable tourism.” The study recognised that “the primary attributes of the Tarkine… are increasingly scarce in the modern world,” and argued that, if developed correctly, the area had the potential to attract international attention.
Modelling found that if “a menu of meaningful, high quality visitor experiences,” were created, tourism in the Tarkine could generate $58.2 million per year and provide 1100 jobs, as long as the required infrastructure was developed. The study recommended that nature tourism be complemented by local produce, to provide food and wine experiences, and predicted that flow-on effects could considerably boost local communities. Cradle Coast Authority executive chairman Roger Jaensch says the 2008 assessment of the Tarkine’s potential is still applicable, as results were based on long-term projections.
Jaensch is confident that the Tarkine could complement established destinations on the west coast, like Cradle Mountain, the Gordon River and Macquarie Harbour. He says the Tarkine’s unique immensity and diversity distinguishes it from existing nature-based tourism developments in Tasmania. “The Tarkine has a juxtaposing range of appeals. That assemblage of things doesn’t happen in too many other places.” He also believes that the Tarkine’s variety of landscapes has the potential to provide attractions year-round in a traditionally seasonal industry. “On the coast when it’s wild, there is a whole different raw, powerful experience associated with winter that we haven’t tapped into yet,” he says.
TARKINE Trails is a long-running tourism business operating in the Tarkine. Current owner Greg Irons bought the business after his first encounter with the Tarkine’s ancient beauty and majesty changed his life. “You leave there after a few days and it just feels wrong that you are wearing clothes,” he says, “You drive around the streets thinking, ‘What the hell have we done?’ This is a place that native Australians lived in for 40,000 years without leaving a footprint and look what we’ve done to Australia in 200 years.” Irons says he is yet to meet anyone who didn’t feel wonderment on experiencing the Tarkine. “I think everyone would appreciate the world a lot more should they get a taste of the Tarkine.”
So with this unique opportunity in plain sight, why hasn’t tourism been developed to its full potential? Irons cites tenure and investment security as critical factors. He says that previous owners had to relocate Tarkine Trails’ six-day walk because of mineral exploration tenures, a move that cost them thousands of dollars. Since then, Irons has invested around $250,000 in a Tarkine camp.
Irons already owned a successful wildlife shelter, Bonorong, when he decided to invest in Tarkine Trails in order to expose people to the Tarkine’s conservation value. He believes no one pursuing a tourism business for commercial purposes would have taken such a risk. “No one in their right mind would do what I have done – put that much money into a camp that is under mining tenure. I could be told to leave in two weeks and I wouldn’t have a leg to stand on,” he says.
Irons says uncertainty surrounding whether nature tourism’s product – the natural environment – was being properly managed could also cause reluctance to invest. He says eco-tourists are equally discouraged by the perception that the environment is being degraded. “It can become a very sad experience.”
In its submission to the federal environment minister, the state government stated that tourism investors would be deterred by further environmental regulations in a similar way to mining companies. But the owner-operator of the Tarkine Wilderness Lodge, Maree Jenkins, argues that most nature-based tourism businesses would be willing to jump through some initial hoops to ensure that their long-term product, the natural environment, was being preserved. “I’m more worried about mining activities than I am about it being made national heritage,” she says. “Without the forest we’d just have a lodge stuck up on top of a hill.”
But the state government says “it is highly unlikely that [tourism] would be able to replace the value of the existing industry, especially mining, in the short to medium term.” Economist Bruce Felmingham agrees. He says mining also provides opportunities for high-salary-earning knowledge workers, like engineers, whereas tourism does not. Felmingham suggests that knowledge workers migrating to Western Australia and Queensland in pursuit of major mining operations may be drawn back to Tasmania. He says attracting high-salary earners could help the state transition to support a “managerial class.”
“The thing we miss here in Tasmania is that head office culture,” Felmingham says. “Getting those higher incomes involved is an essential issue for our future.” But he insists that tourism and industry must coexist in a healthy economy. “It’s got to be a co-tenant. Diversity of industry is the argument here.” He also says that the pursuit of economic benefit shouldn’t eclipse environmental consideration. “I support mining in the Tarkine and I don’t agree with a blanket ban. But I’m not going to support a massive open-cut mine that is going to destroy the wilderness.”
Felmingham believes that the Tasmanian forestry peace deal – the result of a long-running war – was a positive outcome, but he hopes to avoid a conflict of that scale over mining. “People are just going to have to find a new way of looking at these issues. Another war like the forestry war is beyond us.” He says new land-management agreements could help strike a much-needed balance between tourism, industry and conservation. “This is an opportunity to revisit an area and designate it down to areas used by industry and areas that are not.”
The Cradle Coast Authority’s Roger Jaensch echoes this sentiment. “We should be smart enough in this day and age to manage a range of different land uses without them compromising each other unduly,” he says. “It does rely on there being specific, unique, vulnerable things being protected. We don’t believe there needs to be a blanket exclusion of other land uses, but we need to ensure that we don’t compromise values that have already been identified. If mining can be done without damaging irreparably things that can’t be replaced, good on it.”
THE state government maintains that a balance has already been struck within the Tarkine region. Premier Lara Giddings told the ABC and the AWU rally at Tullah that a balance had been realised in that only one per cent of the Tarkine was open to mining.
Venture’s three project leases (Mt Lindsay, Riley Creek and Mt Livingstone, occupying 1,824 hectares combined), Shree Minerals’ assigned 778-hectare lease at Nelson Bay River, and Grange Resources’ existing mining leases do equal about 1.8 per cent of the 433,000-hectare area recommended for heritage listing.
But Save the Tarkine says that Mineral Resources Tasmania’s records show that there are currently fifty-eight mineral exploration licences across the heritage-nominated area, leaving about 70 per cent of the Tarkine under mining tenure. According to Mineral Resources Tasmania – a division of the Department of Infrastructure, Energy and Resources – Venture Minerals’ total tenure alone equals nearly 300 square kilometres, or 30,000 hectares – about 7 per cent of the recommended heritage listing.
Venture – which is listed on the stock exchange – has already identified several other prospects in ASX reports to investors, suggesting the area is a “province of tin.” Last year Venture discovered significant resource potential at a new location dubbed Big Wilson, six kilometres from Mt Lindsay. In March this year the company found another potential hotspot called North Cashbolt a few kilometres north. It has also identified potential at Contact Creek, much further north of Mt Lindsay (which is situated in the south of the region). This prospective resource lies almost adjacent to the Savage River mine – located in the middle of the Tarkine.
Resources minister Bryan Green told a budget estimates hearing on 5 June that he was confident the mines would go ahead. He said he hoped Venture’s proposed projects, including Big Wilson, would be approved – suggesting that expansion beyond Venture’s original three projects’ footprint would be encouraged.
Map: WikiMedia
Premier Lara Giddings told the ABC that “most of the area is already under some form of reserve.” The Tarkine contains a variety of reserves, predominantly regional and multiple-use reserves, as delegated by the Tasmanian Regional Forest Agreement of the 1990s. Much of the area is protected from forestry, but mineral exploration is technically permitted across 96 per cent of the heritage-recommended 433,000 hectares. Only Savage River National Park, a contiguous tract of 18,000 hectares of rainforest, is strictly protected from mining. This means only about 4 per cent of the Tarkine recommended for heritage listing is formally protected from mining and mineral exploration. Unlike other national parks such as Cradle Mountain, Savage River National Park does not facilitate access for tourists.
SAVE the Tarkine’s Scott Jordan says he attempted to negotiate a balance between conservation and mining before launching his campaign for the Tarkine’s protection. Save the Tarkine approached prospective mining companies, the state government and the Tasmanian Minerals Council, hoping for a round-table discussion in order to allocate particular areas of the Tarkine for protection and others for mining.
“We received some support from some of the mining companies – they were keen to test whether it was possible to come to an agreement. But the state government and the Minerals Council weren’t prepared to look at it,” Jordan says.
Tasmanian Minerals Council CEO Terry Long confirms that he refused to negotiate, because he believes land use in the area is already balanced. Long says that when both the Savage River National Park and multiple use reserves were established in the 1990s, the distribution of land was fair. “I told [Save the Tarkine] that I wasn’t interested because a compromise had been made in the nineties. Their idea of compromise is simply to preclude mineral exploration and mining from more of the compromised area,” he says. “The parliament made a judgement that we had a heavy area of mineralisation and it’s reasonable to expect that the community can take advantage of that.”
Long argues that mining’s extensive tenure across the region does not guarantee the development of mines. “There might be nine proposals, but only a handful of those will come to pass. Lots of people want to start a mine, but not many actually get round to it.”
Long believes the current share of the land is particularly justified considering Tasmania’s reserve base. “I’m not aware of any other state that has 52 per cent of its land in reserves. Just to the south of the dreaded Tarkine, you’ve got a quarter of the state in a World Heritage area. It’s not as though we are short,” he says.
But Heritage Council chair Carmen Lawrence says the Tarkine’s unique values cannot be cancelled out by the quantity of Tasmania’s reserves. “Heritage criteria are comparative, so any site that is recommended for listing has to have characteristics which are not listed in other properties. It means the Tarkine’s unique characteristics are peerless.”
Long says the area’s reserve category demands a stringent process be followed before mines are developed. “If you have found an ore body, it’s not a matter of an automatic right to mine.” But environmentalists are concerned that the state government’s explicit determination to see new mining projects come to fruition may compromise processes. Resources minister Bryan Green signed a mining lease for Venture Minerals’ Mt Livingstone mine in May last year, but then answered questions about the project incorrectly at a budget estimates meeting, denying that the lease resided in the Meredith Range reserve.
“He made an apology for making an incorrect statement, but he never addressed the issue of whether or not he knew which lease he signed,” Jordan says. “It’s clear that the minister hadn’t even extended the courtesy of actually checking which lease he was signing.”
A COMMON misperception is that most new mines would only affect “plain old buttongrass,” as one mining supporter put it. But Venture’s Mt Lindsay proposal is entirely positioned within rainforest; its Mt Livingstone lease covers a varied terrain of diverse habitat including myrtle rainforest, eucalypt forest and buttongrass plains; and the Riley Creek strip mine, while causing a smaller footprint than the aforementioned open-cut proposals, will require clearing of both old growth and regrowth forest.
Terry Long argues that any natural values onsite will be carefully managed and assessed by the company’s environmental scientists. “The quality of science these days is quite remarkable,” he says.
Environmentalists contend, however, that the area’s heritage values cannot be sufficiently identified or protected because government has failed to recognise them. Scott Jordan says existing regulatory authorities are not required to consider the values identified by the Heritage Council. He cites Tony Burke’s decision against heritage listing, and the state government’s submission, as examples of the government’s refusal to acknowledge the Tarkine’s values.
Conservationists are also concerned about the government’s commitment to mitigating long-term legacy risks. Bryan Green recently told a budget estimates hearing that past mining activity had polluted about forty Tasmanian rivers.
“Those longer-term issues are like time bombs – it might be twenty or thirty years before their impact,” Jordan says.
Each of the proposed new mining leases contains multiple waterways. But Long says the science of rehabilitation has progressed dramatically and is designed to manage these risks. “People used to drive down the highway and throw their tinnies out the window, now you wouldn’t dream of doing that. It’s the same in mining.”
Long admits that open-cut operations obviously change the topography of the affected area, but he says they can also be rehabilitated acceptably. “When you dig the ore out you have a hole, you are not going to have a hill. But the plan for Savage River, for example, is to have it as a series of lakes open for tourism development.” He is confident that mining companies will be adequately held to account by the EPA during both the approval process and the mining operation. “Your environmental case has to be particularly rigorous and of very high quality or it’s going to be knocked back,” he says.
The Wilderness Society’s Jon Sumby – an expert adviser on environmental policy and science who has been looking into Venture’s mining proposals – acknowledges that the EPA made some positive recommendations for water management in its approval of the Riley Creek project. But he says its consideration of the Tasmanian devil was worryingly insufficient. Concern for the devil has skyrocketed as fast-spreading facial cancer threatens to see the animal follow in the footsteps of the state’s iconic Tasmanian tiger, now extinct. A serious hazard for the fragile species is roadkill. Sumby says regular trucking, along with the cumulative effect of Venture’s three projects, and the fact that the Riley Creek and Mt Livingstone mines will run twenty-four hours a day, puts devils at risk. “There will be 148 trucks per day running from Riley Creek alone. Add in Mt Livingstone and Mt Lindsay and that goes up to 528 vehicles.”
Sumby believes that while it may issue conditions, the EPA is unlikely to deny mining proposals, even if the environmental impact is too great, as it is only required to assess material presented to it by companies. “You will never find a person who is hired to do an environmental assessment for a company who will come back and say ‘it can’t be done,’” he says.
SO IT SEEMS that true balance to satisfy all stakeholders is still in doubt. Tarkine Trails’ Greg Irons says people fear that a desirable outcome may be jeopardised by what has become a highly political feud. “Governments,” he adds, “are looking to be able to say ‘look what we did for the economy.’”
He hopes all parties will strive to find a middle ground for conservation, tourism and industry. “We have a whole lot of people who don’t want to see a leaf touched and a whole lot of people who don’t want to see a leaf. Sustainability is where the world needs to be,” he says.
The Cradle Coast Authority’s Roger Jaensch says that the only way to go is forward. “This is going to be a bit messy, but it’s got to be a rolling process,” he says. “The alternative is to go backwards, to say we have no hope of possibly managing people and conservation in this environment and therefore we should close it down to everything. That would be defeat.”
Jaensch believes agencies responsible for the land must communicate more effectively and that no one should get first bite of the cherry. “I don’t think we can reserve the whole region hoping tourism operators come up with great things, just as we can’t reserve the whole region to exclude tourism because miners might find a nice bit of ore. Tourism and mining each bring their own impacts into these environments – we’ve got to manage them and we’ve got to do it smarter. And we have to get people in, whether they be mining companies or tourism operators, who are up to that challenge.”
Looking out over the rainforest, Ruth Groom says decisions ought to be made with long-term consequences in mind. “When the industrial and technological revolutions were changing the world, we really didn’t know what the consequences would be. We can’t pretend we don’t know any more.”
Groom hopes that decision-makers will consider the wider repercussions of failing to protect rare environments like the Tarkine. “Forests are actually working for us. They are protecting our soil, our water and our air,” she says. “By compromising these environments we are compromising our water, our endangered species, and ultimately ourselves.”
Venture Minerals declined an interview. Resources minister Bryan Green was unavailable for comment. The AWU and premier Lara Giddings did not return calls.
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This was not lost on Rove’s fellow conservatives. In a statement after the election, the right-wing advocate Richard Viguerie said that in any sane world, Rove “would never be hired to run or consult on a national campaign again.”
Donald Trump , his Twitter finger itchy and his words ever measured, tweeted: “Congrats to @KarlRove on blowing $400 million this cycle. Every race @CrossroadsGPS ran ads in, the Republicans lost. What a waste of money.”
This cycle illustrated both the limits and the perfidy of money. The sums spent by Crossroads and other groups on negative ads against Sherrod Brown in Ohio , an eminently beatable Democrat running for re-election to the Senate, didn’t infuse his challenger, Josh Mandel, 35, with the maturity and eloquence he badly needed. Brown coasted to victory.
And megadonors and super PACs arguably did Romney more harm than good. It was money from Sheldon Adelson, Newt Gingrich ’s backer, that financed some of the most vicious attacks on Romney’s Bain Capital career and laid the groundwork for Democrats’ successful caricature of him as a callous plutocrat. And by keeping Romney’s primary challengers in the game, Adelson and his ilk forced Romney ever further to the right, which would haunt him plenty in the general election.
IF Rove had a firm grip on how all of this was playing out, he didn’t fully cop to it. But then he’s a maestro of the overconfident, in-your-face show. He humbly titled his 2010 memoir “Courage and Consequence” and, on his Web site, lets it be known that the tour for it took him to “110 cities in 90 days.”
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I still can’t get over a telephone interview he gave Joe Hagan for an article in New York magazine last year. Fresh off his second divorce, he’s zooming down a Texas road in a car with his younger girlfriend, “a lobbyist rumored to have been Rove’s mistress before his divorce,” Hagan writes. Hagan can hear her “squeals of laughter,” along with Rove’s gloating to her: “Goddangit, baby, we’re making good time!”
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“It was totally cavalier,” Hagan told me last week, when I asked him if the timing of the call was accidental and her presence grudgingly revealed. No and no. “I was struck by how arrogant and freewheeling he was in that moment,” Hagan said.
Of course arrogance, or at least self-assurance, is a consultant’s stock in trade. That’s what we buy when we buy advice: not just the content of it but the authority, even the grandiloquence, with which it’s delivered. We exchange the anxiety of autonomy for the comfort of following orders. And Rove gives great orders, rife with arcane historical references and reams of data.
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He’s smart and has on many occasions shown a keen understanding of Republicans’ vulnerabilities. The compassion in George W. Bush ’s conservatism — the oratorical emphasis on education, the moderate stance on immigration — was a Rove-blessed attempt to keep the party from seeming as harsh as it does now. Rove has warned repeatedly that it mustn’t estrange Latino voters. And he was among the first and loudest Republican leaders to lament the damage that Christine O’Donnell , Sarah Palin and Todd Akin were doing to the party’s brand.
But he either didn’t or couldn’t keep them away in the first place, and as the 2012 campaign progressed, he seemed to get lost in the exaggerated, delusional spin of it all. This culminated in his attempt on election night to refute the Ohio returns and the projection of an Obama victory, prompting the Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly to ask him if his contrary calculations were just “math that you do as a Republican to make yourself feel better.”
Two days later, back on Fox News, Rove was still spinning, still in denial. He claimed that Obama won by “suppressing the vote,” but by voter suppression he meant negative ads about Bain. The same kind, mind you, that Adelson once helped circulate.
Rove’s awful election night proved that you can’t buy momentum or create it simply by decreeing it, and that there’s a boundary to what bluster accomplishes. The road he zoomed down in 2012 was toward a potentially diminished place in his party, and Goddangit, baby, he was making good time indeed.
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BUCHAREST, Romania — Romania’s top defense body has approved a €9.8 billion (U.S. $11.5 billion) spending plan for the next decade and has pledged to spend 2 percent of its gross domestic product on defense, as NATO requests of its members.
The Supreme Defence Council met Tuesday and agreed to spend the money to upgrade the country’s military from 2017-2026.
Last week, Defence Minister Adrian Tutuianu said Romania would buy Patriot missiles worth $3.9 billion from the United States.
Saber Guardian: Crossing the Danube 1 of 23 The Romanian armed forces conduct a river crossing exercise on the Danube as part of the U.S. Army Europe’s Black Sea region exercise Saber Guardian. Overnight, Romanian units secured both sides of the river, pushing enemy forces out of machine gun and artillery fire range and built a pontoon float bridge across under the cover of darkness. One bridge section remained, and the bridge was completed during the exercise on the morning of July 16. (Jen Judson/Staff) 2 of 23 Romanian MiG-21 Lancer fighter jets kick off the exercise, providing air support to fend the enemy off and out of the areas on the opposite side of the river now occupied by friendly forces. The entire hour-and-a-half exercise was conducted using Romanian military capability in a multidomain battle scenario. (Jen Judson/Staff) 3 of 23 Troops from Romania defend the banks of the Danube and the bridge erected overnight as the exercise heats up. (Jen Judson/Staff) 4 of 23 A Eurofighter Typhoon jet soars over the bridge on the Danube. (Jen Judson/Staff) 5 of 23 Romanian Zimbru armored personnel carriers firing on the banks of the Danube continue to beat back enemy forces and to secure the bridge for Romanian troops, other combat vehicles and U.S. Stryker fighting vehicles from the 2nd Cavalry Regiment to cross the river later in the exercise. (Jen Judson/Staff) 6 of 23 A soldier fires, providing cover for troops attempting to cross the Danube with a high-speed boat. (Jen Judson/Staff) 7 of 23 Well-camouflaged Romanian troops load into high-speed rafts within seconds on the side of the Danube and begin the short journey across to support friendly forces on the other shoreline, fending off enemy advances. (Jen Judson/Staff) 8 of 23 A camouflaged raft zips across the Danube, picking up more troops to carry back. The process of moving units across the river several times took just a few minutes. (Jen Judson/Staff) 9 of 23 The river crossing exercise was a solid example of a multidomain battle, U.S. Army Europe Commander Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges said following the event. While fighter jets flew overhead, combat vehicles and short-range air defense systems fired on the shores, and rafts zipped back and forth, carrying troops across the Danube. Several river flotilla from the Romanian Navy were positioned to protect the bridge and the shores. (Jen Judson/Staff) 10 of 23 Romanian paratroopers practice their skills at the river crossing, jumping from C-130s and dropping on the side of the Danube where enemy forces were still attempting to regain lost territory. Normally, the entire operation would have occurred at night, but for the sake of showing off skills in an exercise, they practiced during the day. (Jen Judson/Staff) 11 of 23 Once the banks are secured, the final piece of the bridge is guided out to where it will complete the chain. The bridging capability is resident in the Romanian military. The U.S. and allies in the region continue to exercise bridging capabilities, something of which the U.S. has very little. All of U.S. bridging capability resides within the reserve forces but is being seen as increasingly important as the U.S. and its allies in Europe strengthen skills needed to operate in the region. (Jen Judson/Staff) 12 of 23 Romanian BTR armored vehicles move into the river as troops fire their guns. Using armored vehicles to swim the Danube is a move the Soviets developed in the Warsaw Pact and practiced regularly. The Romanians brought back the capability during the exercise using an entire company of BTRs. (Jen Judson/Staff) 13 of 23 A Romanian-manufactured Puma helicopter continues to provide support for ground troops preparing to cross the bridge. (Jen Judson/Staff) 14 of 23 A Gepard short-range air defense system fires on the banks of the Danube. Romania was provided systems from Germany and now it’s a critical system as countries in the region seek to deter Russian aggression. Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, U.S. Army Europe commander, has lamented the lack of SHORAD capability in the U.S. Army. To shore up the gap in Europe, some National Guard Avenger units will deploy on a rotational basis starting this fall. Countries like Romania with resident SHORAD capability also help to fill that gap. (Jen Judson/Staff) 15 of 23 A river flotilla present at the exercise show in Romania has a strong brown-water navy capability, which impressed Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, U.S. Army Europe commander, who said after the exercise he didn’t even know Romania had such a capability and thought it was vital for protecting critical waterways like the Danube. (Jen Judson/Staff) 16 of 23 Romanian medics practice responding to an injured sailor from one of the navy ships in the river. A raft rescued the sailor, simulating an injury and brought him to shore, where he was treated and whisked away in a medical vehicle. The river crossing exercise also simulated a mass casualty event and corresponded with a mass casualty exercise at nearby Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base, where the personnel feigned injuries to allow military medics from Romania, the U.S. and the Balkan Medical Task Force to practice high-level triage skills. (Jen Judson/Staff) 17 of 23 A Gepard in the foreground continues to scan the skies for threats while Romanian tanks and U.S. Strykers begin to line up on the beach in order to cross the bridge. (Jen Judson/Staff) 18 of 23 A Gepard is one of the first to cross the bridge during the river crossing exercise. (Jen Judson/Staff) 19 of 23 A U.S. Stryker outfitted with a counter-improvised explosive device capability prepares to cross the river. The Stryker crossing was the only U.S. participation in the exercise. (Jen Judson/Staff) 20 of 23 U.S. Stryker operators prepare to drive the vehicle onto the pontoon bridge after Romanian forces have used a variety of capabilities within a multidomain battle scenario to secure the area for the crossing. (Jen Judson/Staff) 21 of 23 U.S. Strykers move slowly across the bridge to mark the end of the river crossing exercise. The U.S. Strykers of the 2nd Cavalry Regiment are often the vehicles of choice during bridging and river crossing exercises in Europe. U.S. Strykers crossed a bridge constructed using M3 amphibious vehicles In Chelmno, Poland, during the country’s major military exercise Anakonda 2016 in June, for example. (Jen Judson/Staff) 22 of 23 A Romanian soldier rides in a T-85 main battle tank across the bridge during the river crossing. (Jen Judson/Staff) 23 of 23 U.S. Strykers move across the Danube. The river is critically important to the region because it serves as a great highway of commerce for many different countries and feeds into the Black Sea. Romanians are concerned about what Russia has done in the Black Sea and Crimea, and they fear further Russian aggression and encroachment in strategically important waterways. (Jen Judson/Staff)
Parliament needs to pass a law that would allow the acquisition. The U.S. State Department approved the sale in July, saying it would help to “improve the security of a NATO ally.”
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The parties involved in the Ukraine conflict must avoid any steps which could lead to a new escalation of tensions, German Foreign Minster Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Monday, at a meeting of foreign ministers of the four Visegrad group countries: Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia.
Steinmeier urged for the continuation of the Minsk peace process.
"One thing is clear I think to all of us: there is no, and there cannot be, a military solution to the crisis in Ukraine," Steinmeier told reporters.
Slovakian foreign minister Miroslav Lajcak expressed the support of the central European countries for Germany in its role as a key mediator in Ukraine.
"We all very much appreciate Germany's leadership in this matter," he said.
According to news agency Reuters, Steinmeier also said senior officials from Germany, Ukraine and Russia would meet in Paris on Wednesday to discuss oversight mechanisms for the ceasefire in eastern Ukraine.
se/jr (Reuters, dpa)
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(NaturalNews) Two out of every three store-bought chickens may be contaminated with bacteria that commonly cause human illness, according to a study conducted by the Consumers Union."Consumers still need to be very careful in handling chicken, which is routinely contaminated with disease-causing bacteria," said Urvashi Rangan, the union's director of technical policy.Researchers conducted tests on 382 fresh broiler chickens purchased at 100 retailers in 22 states in spring 2009. A full two-thirds of the chickens were contaminated with either one or both of the bacteria strains most often responsible for food-borne illness. Although this figure is an improvement over the 2007 figure of 80 percent, the Consumers Union still called the numbers "far too high" and called for stricter government regulation.Sixty-two percent of chickens tested positive for campylobacter, the number two cause of food-borne illness. Fourteen percent tested positive for salmonella, the number one cause, and 9 percent tested positive for both.In contrast, the U.S. Department of Agriculture found only 5 percent of chickens contaminated with salmonella in its tests of chicken packing plants in April, May and June 2009. The Consumers Union noted that its own tests were conducted farther down the supply chain, when more opportunities for contamination had arisen. It also pointed to prior studies finding widespread campylobacter contamination at chicken processing plants, and called upon the government to set a maximum safe threshold for levels of the bacteria.Although cooking destroys both salmonella and campylobacter contamination, people can be exposed to the pathogens while cooking or otherwise processing the raw meat. In addition, contamination can spread from uncooked chicken to other foods more commonly eaten raw. For this reason, health experts recommend that chicken always be bagged separately from other foods and refrigerated or frozen within two hours of purchase. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend keeping a separate cutting board exclusively for use on uncooked poultry, in order to prevent contamination of other foods.Sources for this story include: abcnews.go.com.
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Yesterday, Michael Whitney pointed out how irresponsible it was for the ultimate commander of all the people who will decide Bradley Manning’s innocence or guilt to state publicly, before his trial, that “he broke the law.” But there was something else wrong with it. As transcribed by the UK Friends of Bradley Manning, Obama said,
OBAMA: So people can have philosophical views [about Bradley Manning] but I can’t conduct diplomacy on an open source [basis]… That’s not how the world works. And if you’re in the military… And I have to abide by certain rules of classified information. If I were to release material I weren’t allowed to, I’d be breaking the law. We’re a nation of laws! We don’t let individuals make their own decisions about how the laws operate. He broke the law. [Q: Didn’t he release evidence of war crimes?] OBAMA: What he did was he dumped… [Q: Isn’t that just the same thing as what Daniel Ellsberg did?] OBAMA: No it wasn’t the same thing. Ellsberg’s material wasn’t classified in the same way. [my emphasis]
But of course, Presidents (and some Vice Presidents) actually don’t have to “abide by certain rules of classified information.” As explained by John Rizzo in the context of the Obama Administration’s leaks to Bob Woodward, they can and do insta-declassify stuff for their own political purposes all the time. They can do it to make the President look important; they can do it to lie us into an illegal war; they can do it to ruin the career of someone who might expose the earlier lies. (Steven Aftergood and Eugene Fidell explain the legal reason this is true for the Politico.)
The way secrecy in this country works is insidious not just because the government prevents citizens from learning the things we as citizens need to know to exercise democracy, but also because the President and other classification authorities can wield secrecy as an instrument of power, choosing to release information they otherwise claim is top secret when it serves their political purpose. As I pointed out last year, this power even extends to information about whether or not the President has approved assassinating an American citizen.
Less than a month ago, the Obama Administration told a judge they didn’t have to–couldn’t–tell a judge their basis for killing a US citizen. Instead, they invoked state secrets, claiming (among other things) they couldn’t even confirm or deny whether they had targeted Anwar al-Awlaki for assassination. Yet this came after one after another Obama Administration official leaked the news that al-Awlaki had been targeted, and after they had obliquely confirmed that he was. The Administration can leak news of this targeting all it wants, apparently, but when a US citizen attempts to get protection under the law, then it becomes a state secret.
There’s a lot of other reasons why this President’s claim that “we are a nation of laws!” is utterly laughable, from his Administration’s refusal to prosecute torture or bank fraud to its efforts to prevent former officials from doing time for breaking the law.
We are not, anymore, a nation of laws. The Constitutional Professor President has institutionalized the efforts W and Cheney made to make sure that remains true.
But one of the ways our lawlessness most disproportionately works against the citizens of this country is the government’s abuse of secrecy.
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Image caption Polls suggest the referendum race is neck and neck
The close-knit community on the Mediterranean island of Malta could be on the verge of a fundamental change that may affect the very fabric of its society.
In a referendum on Saturday, the citizens of this deeply Roman Catholic country will decide whether to introduce divorce.
Malta is the only country - apart from the Philippines and the Vatican City - where divorce cannot be carried out.
Instead, people must either become domiciled abroad or, if one of the parties is not Maltese, they could apply for a divorce in their own country. That divorce can be recorded in Malta.
Couples can apply for a legal separation through the courts, or seek a Church annulment - a complex process that can take up to nine years.
Divorce referendum 581 polling booths across Malta and Gozo
2,925 assistant electoral commissioners - who oversee the voting
720 counting staff
Cost of about 4m euros, which includes 1m euros for cheap flights home for Maltese abroad
Referendum question in English and Maltese, with a vote for either Iva (Yes) or Le (No) Second chance or try harder?
Anti-divorce campaigners argue that the institution of marriage is strong in Malta precisely because couples do not have the option of a fall-back position. And they say that this helps make Maltese society one of the closest-knit in the world.
But those who are pro-divorce say that there are already plenty of separations in Malta, and that these people should be allowed to marry again.
Two camps
According to the Labour opposition leader Joseph Muscat - who is in favour of divorce - two legal separations a day pass through the Maltese courts. On top of this, the courts regularly record foreign divorces.
If you have the means you can get divorced but if you don't then you can't. This, to me, is unjust and unacceptable Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando, MP with the Nationalists
With at least 95% of a population of more than 400,000 being Roman Catholic, divorce has never made it past the strong religious beliefs of the Church, politicians and the public itself.
But that might be about to change. Last year Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando, an MP with the Nationalists, presented a private member's bill along with Evarist Bartolo, an MP with the opposition Labour party.
This bill proposed that people could divorce after living apart for four years, and as long as spouses and dependents were provided for.
Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi's suggestion of a referendum sparked an impassioned debate.
The Catholic Church and the ruling Nationalist party are both backing the "No" campaign, while the Labour party has not taken an official stance.
Role of Church
Mr Orlando, speaking at his large and immaculate home in the countryside around the town of Zebbug, says he did not believe that new legislation would contribute to marital breakdown.
"It's simply a bill that will help regularise the situation for a lot of couples, who are being forced to cohabit," he says.
Image caption Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando, an MP with the Nationalists, thinks the current system is unjust
Separated from his own wife, he has said that he will seek divorce abroad if it is not introduced in his own country. But he points out that this is not something many Maltese can do.
"Malta is the only country in the world which doesn't have divorce but does recognise those obtained abroad. Therefore, if you have the means you can get divorced but if you don't, then you can't.
"This, to me, is unjust and unacceptable."
Mr Orlando sees the referendum as more than just a vote on divorce - for him it's a debate on the Church's role in society and the amount of political and social influence that it carries in Malta.
"I appreciate the fact that the Church should be allowed to exercise spiritual influence, but I can't accept a situation where the Church also wields political and administrative power," he says.
Some parishioners say they have been told by their priests that they will be denied Holy Communion and confession if they vote for divorce, he continues.
"The local Catholic Church is going to suffer, even after the referendum."
Conflict
The fact that we don't have divorce in Malta has helped to strengthen marriage here Monsignor Anton Gouder, Maltese Archdiocese senior official
There have been two recorded cases of conflict between Church and public - one priest who regularly gave the Eucharist to an elderly woman at home began to withhold it once she told him she was pro-divorce. She later received it from another priest.
And, on a recent Sunday, a priest announced to his congregation that anyone planning to vote for divorce in the referendum should not come up to receive Holy Communion - sparking a walk-out by some of his flock.
But Monsignor Anton Gouder, a senior official within the Maltese Archdiocese, says that the two cases were isolated, and that at least one of the priests has apologised.
He also confirms that, despite comments made by other senior priests suggesting otherwise, those who vote for divorce will still be able to go to confession and Holy Communion.
He says divorce is not a religious issue, but a social one, describing Malta as one of the strongest countries in the world for family, with some of the happiest children.
"Not to have divorce is special in a positive way. Statistics show that divorce brings much more marriage breakdown and more cohabitation," he says.
"The fact that we don't have divorce in Malta has helped to strengthen marriage here. Most Maltese marry, and most do that in church.
"With divorce, marriage for life ceases to exist. Your youngsters, who have grown up with divorce, don't know what that actually means in practice."
Neck and neck
Image caption Anton Gouder thinks Malta's stance over divorce has made its society something worth preserving
Mgr Gouder acknowledges that the Church has been damaged by the debate, which has spilled over into questions about how much influence religion should have in a society that is officially secular.
"Obviously, as in other countries, when there is a moral issue at stake, some parts of society find it useful to attack the Church, so that if the Church loses credibility, more people will vote against the principles that the Church holds."
Polls suggest the referendum race is neck and neck. A result is expected on Sunday, but either result may not yet see an end to the argument.
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Image caption Government experts tracked a new ozone hole, but were not allowed to give interviews
The Canadian government has been accused of "muzzling" its scientists.
Speakers at a major science meeting being held in Canada said communication of vital research on health and environment issues is being suppressed.
But one Canadian government department approached by the BBC said it held the communication of science as a priority.
Prof Thomas Pedersen, a senior scientist at the University of Victoria, said he believed there was a political motive in some cases.
"The Prime Minister (Stephen Harper) is keen to keep control of the message, I think to ensure that the government won't be embarrassed by scientific findings of its scientists that run counter to sound environmental stewardship," he said.
"I suspect the federal government would prefer that its scientists don't discuss research that points out just how serious the climate change challenge is."
The Canadian government recently withdrew from the Kyoto protocol to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
The allegation of "muzzling" came up at a session of the AAAS meeting to discuss the impact of a media protocol introduced by the Conservative government shortly after it was elected in 2008.
The protocol requires that all interview requests for scientists employed by the government must first be cleared by officials. A decision as to whether to allow the interview can take several days, which can prevent government scientists commenting on breaking news stories.
Sources say that requests are often refused and when interviews are granted, government media relations officials can and do ask for written questions to be submitted in advance and elect to sit in on the interview.
'Orwellian' approach
Andrew Weaver, an environmental scientist at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, described the protocol as "Orwellian".
The information is so tightly controlled that the public is left in the dark Professor Andrew Weaver, University of Victoria
The protocol states: "Just as we have one department we should have one voice. Interviews sometimes present surprises to ministers and senior management. Media relations will work with staff on how best to deal with the call (an interview request from a journalist). This should include asking the programme expert to respond with approved lines."
Professor Weaver said that information is so tightly controlled that the public is "left in the dark".
"The only information they are given is that which the government wants, which will then allow a supporting of a particular agenda," he said.
The media protocol was obtained and reported three years ago by Margaret Munro, who is a science writer for Postmedia News, based in Vancouver. Speaking at the AAAS meeting, she said its effect was to suppress scientific debate on issues of public interest.
"The more controversial the story, the less likely you are to talk to the scientists. They (government media relations staff) just stonewall. If they don't like the question you don't get an answer."
Ms Munro cited several examples of what she described as the "muzzling" of scientists by the government.
Image caption Research on falling salmon stocks was published in a leading journal
The most notorious case is of that of Dr Kristi Miller, who is head of molecular genetics for the Department for Fisheries and Oceans. Dr Miller had been investigating why salmon populations in western Canada were declining.
The investigation, which was published in one of the leading scientific journals in the world, Science, seemed to suggest that fish might have been exposed to a virus associated with cancer.
The suggestion raised many questions, including whether the virus might have been imported by the local aquaculture industry.
Requests denied
The journal felt this to be an important study and put out a press release, which it sent out to thousands of journalists across the world. Dr Miller was named as the principal contact.
However, the government declined all requests to interview Dr Miller. It said it was because she was due to give evidence to a judicial inquiry on the issue of falling fish stocks.
According to Ms Munro, because reporters were denied the opportunity to question Dr Miller about her work, important public policy issues went unanswered.
"You have a government that is micromanaging the message, obsessively. The Privy Council Office (which works for the Prime Minister, Stephen Harper) seems to vet everything that goes out to the media," she said.
A spokeswoman for Fisheries and Oceans Canada told BBC News: "The Department works daily to ensure it provides the public with timely, accurate, objective and complete information about our policies, programmes, services and initiatives, in accordance with the Federal Government's Communications Policy.
"In 2011, Fisheries and Oceans publicly issued 286 science advisory reports documenting our research on Canada's fisheries; our scientists respond to approximately 380 science-based media calls every year."
Fisheries and Oceans Canada declined a request by the BBC to interview Kristi Miller for this article. Dr Miller told us she would have been willing to be interviewed had her department given her permission.
The AAAS meeting's discussion on muzzling is organised by freelance science reporter Binh An Vu Van. She says fellow journalists across Canada are finding it "harder and harder" to get access to government scientists.
Ms Vu Van claims that as well as "clear-cut cases of muzzling", such as the one involving Dr Miller, media relations officers use more subtle methods. She said that when she requests an interview, she has to enter into prolonged email correspondence to speak to a scientist she knows is ready and willing to be interviewed, often to be declined or offered another scientist she does not want to interview.
"It's so hard to get hold of scientists that a lot of my colleagues have given up," she explained.
Ms Munro cited another example of research published in another leading scientific journal, Nature, that was published last October.
You have a government that is micromanaging the message, obsessively. It seems to vet everything that goes out to the media Margaret Muro, Canadian Science Journalist
An international team including several scientists from the government agency, Environment Canada, set out details of a hole that appeared in the ozone layer above the Arctic.
Ms Munro said she had called one of the scientists involved who she had dealt with several times in the past. He agreed to speak to her, but said that he had been told that her request had to be put to government media relations officials in Ottawa.
"So I phoned up Ottawa and they just said no you can't talk to the guy. A couple of weeks later, he was available but by then the story had been done. So they take them out of the news cycle," she said.
Ms Munro also claims that journalists were denied access to scientists working for the government agency Health Canada last year, when there was concern about radiation levels reaching the country's western coast from Japan following the explosion at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. Ultimately, journalists obtained the information they sought from European agencies.
The Postmedia News journalist obtained documents relating to interview requests using Canada's equivalent of the Freedom of Information Act. She said the documents show interview requests move up what she describes as an "increasingly thick layer of media managers, media strategists, deputy ministers, then go up to the Privy Council Office, which decides 'yes' or 'no'".
"The government has never explained what the process is. They just imposed these changes and they expected us to sit back and take it," she explained.
Professor Andrew Weaver believes that the media protocol is being used by the Canadian government to "instruct scientists to deliver a certain message, thereby taking the heat out of controversial topics".
He added: "You can't have an informed discussion if the science isn't allowed to be communicated. Public relations message number one is that you have to set the conversation. You don't want to have a conversation on someone else's terms. And this is now being applied to science on discussions about oil sands, climate and salmon."
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An enthusiastic amateur historian claims to have discovered a range of giant sculptures that were carved into the British countryside up to 3,000 years ago.
Richard Darlow said he had found up to 40 sites across England and Wales where field systems, hedge lines and trees combined to form mythical creatures such as dragons and giants, as well as women, dogs and pigs.
The author and ancient British history buff came across the land formations while using Google Earth to study better-known Celtic artwork such as the Long Man of Wilmington and the White Horse of Uffington.
We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view. From 15p €0.18 $0.18 $0.27 a day, more exclusives, analysis and extras.
And he suggests those smaller chalk sculptures were in fact just markers to indicate the presence of the much larger pieces, some of which he believes are up to seven miles long.
Mr Darlow has produced an e-book revealing his 20 “finest and most interesting” finds, in a bid to persuade the public that his discoveries are more than just a series of Rorschach tests across the rolling hills of the UK.
He told The Independent the sculptures, many of which feature dragons, could have widespread implications for our understanding of ancient Britain, and suggested it was “incredible” no one had found them before.
Shape Created with Sketch. Giant land sculptures discovered across England and Wales Show all 11 left Created with Sketch. right Created with Sketch. Shape Created with Sketch. Giant land sculptures discovered across England and Wales 1/11 Wormhill dragon Wormhill dragon's head looking left (Derbyshire) 2/11 Clevedon dragon Clevedon dragon looks left, with hill fort for eye of dragon (Somerset) 3/11 Llancarfan dragon Llancarfan dragon at 14000 feet in full length (the Vale of Glamorgan) 4/11 Uffington Smaug The head of the Uffington Smaug - with the White 'Horse' seen in the far left (Oxfordshire) 5/11 Knucker of Arundel Knucker of Arundel's head looking right (West Sussex) 6/11 Hobeu the Amberley Pig Hobeu the pig, looking left (West Sussex) 7/11 Cuxton Hound Hound facing right (Kent) 8/11 Andredes the Golden Steed of Cissbury The horse is looking left (West Sussex) 9/11 Old Gill the Giant of Mount Caburn Old Gill looks right - form of Iron Age king (East Sussex) 10/11 Chaucer the Wyvern of Bath Chaucer "the Wyvern of Bath" at 25000 feet (Somerset) 11/11 Ceridwen the Cadbury Lady Cadbury Lady seen looking right at 15000 feet (Somerset) 1/11 Wormhill dragon Wormhill dragon's head looking left (Derbyshire) 2/11 Clevedon dragon Clevedon dragon looks left, with hill fort for eye of dragon (Somerset) 3/11 Llancarfan dragon Llancarfan dragon at 14000 feet in full length (the Vale of Glamorgan) 4/11 Uffington Smaug The head of the Uffington Smaug - with the White 'Horse' seen in the far left (Oxfordshire) 5/11 Knucker of Arundel Knucker of Arundel's head looking right (West Sussex) 6/11 Hobeu the Amberley Pig Hobeu the pig, looking left (West Sussex) 7/11 Cuxton Hound Hound facing right (Kent) 8/11 Andredes the Golden Steed of Cissbury The horse is looking left (West Sussex) 9/11 Old Gill the Giant of Mount Caburn Old Gill looks right - form of Iron Age king (East Sussex) 10/11 Chaucer the Wyvern of Bath Chaucer "the Wyvern of Bath" at 25000 feet (Somerset) 11/11 Ceridwen the Cadbury Lady Cadbury Lady seen looking right at 15000 feet (Somerset)
“Dragon culture in ancient Britain was widespread, and we’ve always interpreted the story of St George slaying the dragon as a symbol for the new doing away with the old religion,” he said.
“Yet with the discovery of these sculptures, the symbol begins to speak more loudly – there actually was worship of dragon entities going on, and it was a major part of the culture.
“I hadn’t considered before, seriously, that there was a dragon-worshipping culture here – even though I’ve used such terms in my writing. Yet now, it is obvious that is what they were doing, and that’s what they were making sacrifices to.”
The White Horse of Uffington, Mr Darlow says, was in fact intended to be the White Dragon – and it points to a much larger dragon made up of the undulating hillside, stretching away for 11km and best viewed from more than 30,000 feet.
Another remarkable specimen, which Mr Darlow has taken the liberty of naming as Ceridwen the Cadbury Lady, takes as its starting point the unmistakable ancient hill fort of Cadbury Castle.
He has not investigated the sites in his book in person – but he has some theories as to how they might have been created, possibly “by an oxen-drawn ground-trawling device of great weight, designed to cut flat slices out of the earth”.
“Presumably somebody also had the power of flight, in a balloon at least, to ascend to the heights necessary to view and oversee the shaping of these sculptures,” he suggests.
Mr Darlow said he welcomed others to get on Google Earth and explore the British countryside themselves for evidence of more ancient giants.
“Anyone can get out on Google Earth and start looking themselves. It is there, it is part of our cultural landscape, it is for people to see and I encourage people to look or themselves.”
We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view.
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I've seen robot dogs come and go over the years. They all had their charms. Some, like the Sony AIBO, were almost preternaturally smart. Others like iCybie, were slow, plodding and yet still somehow lovable.
Sadly, none of them have had the staying power of an actual pet.
See also: Rolling Buddy robot may just kill you with cuteness
Now a company called WowWee, which tends to trade in the hyperactive, remote-control-driven variety of cyber pooch, hopes to break that pattern with its Canine Home Intelligent Pet or "CHiP."
The $199 black-and-white robot pup, which won’t arrive until sometime next year, has more smarts that your average robot toy dog. The prototypes I saw are already packed with sensors.
The head alone has an array of carefully hidden infrared sensors that give it a 360-degree view, which it uses to find its special ball and charging bed. CHiP also has Bluetooth so it can connect with its special Smart Band. Owners wear the band to send the robot dog likes — and to help CHiP keep track of you.
WowWee's upcoming CHiP robot dog has some serious moves. A video posted by Lance Ulanoff (@lanceulanoff) on Nov 9, 2015 at 2:56pm PST
CHiP looks like a cute, big-headed puppy. Its paws are another matter. CHiP rolls around at high speed on a set of Meccanum wheels. The benefit of this unusual mobility system is that CHiP can roll in virtually any direction. That, when coupled with the robot pup's startling speed, allows it to do things only real dogs usually do.
WowWee CHiP robot dog with its smart ball. Image: Mashable, Lance Ulanoff
For example, I saw CHiP track and trap his ball even when it wasn't rolled directly at it. The ball, which also has IR Beaconsense in it (it goes to sleep when not in use to preserve battery power), communicates with CHiP so the robot can "see" it during a rolling game of catch, or fetch.
In the demonstrations I saw, CHiP was incredibly agile and fast — but, like a toddler learning to walk, had trouble keeping its balance and, on more than one occasion, tottered over onto its face.
It's special
CHiP can sit, squat down, shimmy, dance around and make all sorts of dog sounds. It does seem alive. But I've fallen for other dogs, only to be disappointed by the lack of engagement on the robot's part or by the lack of commitment by the company building the robots.
What, I asked WowWee executive Davin Sufer, makes CHiP different? "It acts with intent," said Davin, explaining that the robot dog will act differently when you're around. It will also keep itself busy, looking for its ball and reacting to its environment.
For example, as the sun sets, CHiP's sensors will pick up the dimming light and will use its IR sensors to find its bed and self-charge. If it can't find the bed and gets stranded, it may text you for help. CHiP will take a couple of hours to charge and should operate for two hours.
There's no remote control for CHiP the robot dog, but you can communicate with it via this Smart Band. Image: Mashable, Lance Ulanoff
CHiP won't have a remote control. There will be an app, but it will mostly be for adjusting settings. WowWee really wants people to engage directly with CHiP. That said, there is that Smart Band, which will ship with CHiP. It's there so the robo-dog can tell, based on Bluetooth, when you're arriving home. It's there so CHiP can follow you around and so you can "train" it. That training comes through the use of a Like button on the band, which you press when you want to reinforce something CHiP does.
As a result, CHiP will act differently in the presence of the band. If someone else has another band, CHiP will react to the reinforcements stored on that band. Additional bands should cost between $29 and $39.99.
Don't buy a collar yet
CHiP is still under development. There were no touch sensors in the prototype I saw, but they are planned for the head, back and possibly the belly. There's currently an open development/charging port on the belly that WowWee may or may not leave in place. That could be useful as a charging option if you leave the charging bed behind.
One thing the company does not plan to add is voice recognition, a surprising omission considering all the advancements in microphone and voice recognition technology. But Sufer told me that their studies have shown that it just isn’t that useful — for a robot dog, at least.
That sets CHiP apart from the electronic pup it most resembles, Zoomer. That too had wheels for feet (not Meccanum) and was very fast, but it mostly reacted to a fixed set of voice commands.
WowWee plans to officially announce CHiP early next year, and may launch a Kickstarter or Indiegogo campaign to support it.
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Shares of Nvidia Corp. established record highs for a second consecutive session Thursday, after analysts cheered the chip maker’s new data-center offering that Chief Executive Jensen Huang called “the most expensive computer project the world has ever done.”
At the keynote address of Nvidia’s NVDA, -1.00% annual GPU Technology Conference on Wednesday, Huang showed off the new Tesla Volta server processor architecture, the latest offering for Nvidia’s booming data-center business. He highlighted the gigantic expense of developing the Tesla V100 chip, which leverages Nvidia’s recent advances in deep learning.
“The R&D budget was $3 billion and this is the first one, so if anyone would like to buy it, the price is $3 billion,” Hung said while holding the first V100 off the assembly line.
Lots of fancy stats about Tesla Volta V100 processor. I like the $3 billion number, but programmers will like this:https://t.co/1L5Q9BddKs — A complexifier (@jowens510) May 10, 2017
The Volta unveiling was one of the highlights of Nvdia’s GTC conference, which has grown in stature as the Silicon Valley company has become a leader in artificial intelligence, which it is marketing for data centers, high-performance computing and autonomous vehicles. Huang also announced a new partnership with one of the world’s largest car makers, Toyota Motor Corp. TM, +0.67% , to incorporate the Drive PX platform into future Toyota self-driving automobiles.
Huang’s speech came a day after Nvidia’s quarterly earnings report, which sent the stock to its second-largest one-day gain of all time as well as intraday and closing record highs as analysts frantically raised price targets. Shares gained another 4.3% to more records Thursday after analysts again praised the company for its new data-center offering and other efforts announced at GTC, sending Nvidia’s market capitalization higher than $75 billion for the first time. Nvidia’s market cap is now approaching chip companies like Qualcomm Corp. QCOM, +0.08% and Texas Instruments Inc. TXN, -0.85% , both of which are valued at roughly $81 billion.
Nvidia stock is now up more than 250% in the past year, while the S&P 500 index SPX, -0.08% has increased 16% in the same time.
RBC Capital Markets raised its price target on Nvidia to $150 from $138 on Thursday afternoon, thanks to “increased confidence around data-center growth” after an event for analysts at GTC. Analyst Mitch Steves also said he thinks total artificial-intelligence applications can grow faster than even the current rise for Nvidia’s server business, potentially at a rate of more than 200%.
Graphic embed is no longer available.
“For data center, we see no slowdown in sight and believe the segment can continue its torrid triple-digit growth in 2017 and beyond,” wrote Steves, who has an outperform rating on the stock.
Don’t miss: Nvidia surges as AI drives deeper into the cloud
In its session with analysts, Nvidia said that the total addressable market for its server chips will grow to $30 billion by 2020, giving plenty of opportunity for more growth. SunTrust Robinson Humphrey analysts were skeptical of that figure, noting it is 60% larger than Intel Corp.’s INTC, +0.24% industry-leading data-center group, but said they would “take some time to analyze the feasibility of such a ramp.”
Still, Nvidia’s GTC presentations convinced those analysts on two important points.
“While AI technology is nascent today, it will likely become pervasive in the future in fields ranging from transportation to medicine to security to finance, and Nvidia’s massive parallel architecture that forms the basis for GPUs makes the company uniquely (perhaps luckily) positioned to lead with technology (from chips to software to systems) to support the rapid growth of AI,” they wrote, while maintaining a hold rating and $124 price target.
See also: Nvidia proves why it is the hottest stock on Wall Street
J.P. Morgan analyst Harlan Sur has a similar view of the company, maintaining a $122 price target and hold rating based on his belief that shares are “fully priced at current levels” while seeing a large growth opportunity.
“We expect the data-center segment to grow strongly going forward as hyperscale customers continue to embrace GPU-accelerated deep learning for processing large data sets,” Sur wrote Thursday morning. “We are encouraged by strength in the automotive and enterprise segments as well, although strong adoption of autonomous driving in the market remains to be seen.”
Sur called the Toyota partnership a “significant win,” and Susquehanna Financial Group’s Christopher Rolland concurred by calling it a “big win” that should be viewed as a negative for Mobileye NV US:MBLY and its eventual owner, Intel.
Pacific Crest Securities analysts also mentioned a threat to Intel, but in the data-center field.
“Nvidia is actively touting its Tesla GPUs as able to replace hundreds of traditional servers with only CPUs in terms of deep learning computing performance, according to its internal estimates,” they wrote. “This could become a headwind to Intel’s DCG business until it releases its Crest family of AI chips.”
Pacific Crest retained an underweight rating on Nvidia with a $99 price target, while Susquehanna maintained a neutral rating and $110 target.
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Media playback is not supported on this device Stuart Broad hails 'hero' Botham after surpassing wicket tally
Stuart Broad said he wants to play in the 2019 Ashes against Australia, after passing Sir Ian Botham on the list of England's all-time Test wicket-takers.
Seamer Broad, 31, moved ahead of Botham's 383 wickets in the first-Test win against West Indies at Edgbaston.
He is second only to team-mate James Anderson, who has 492.
"I have a lot of cricket left in me," said Broad. "I'm really enjoying being a part of this team and hopefully have a few more miles in the tank."
He added: "I'll be 33 in 2019. I certainly hope that my performances will keep improving so that I'm part of that 2019 Ashes."
Broad, who made his debut in 2007 and has 107 Test caps, claimed his 384th wicket by bowling Shane Dowrich on the third evening.
He finished with 3-34 in the second innings and 5-81 in the match as England took 19 wickets on Saturday to condemn West Indies to defeat inside three days.
Among pace bowlers, only 35-year-old Anderson, with 127 caps, has played more Tests for England than Broad.
Media playback is not supported on this device Highlights: Landmark Broad wicket as England cruise to win
"It's hard to look too far ahead," said Nottinghamshire's Broad. "You don't know if you'll have luck with injuries, for example.
"I'll play as long as my competitive spirit and drive is there, because that's what gets me up in the morning. As soon as that goes, I'm gone."
England, who hold the Ashes, travel to Australia for a five-match series that begins in November. The sides meet again in England in 2019.
They play two more Tests against West Indies before the trip down under, and Broad does not want to be rested for the remaining matches at Headingley or Lord's.
"This winter is a hugely exciting one," he said. "The two teams are very similar so it should be a belter.
"I will politely be suggesting that I will be having sufficient rest in September and October to be available for the next two Tests against West Indies."
Botham, who watched Broad pass his tally from the Sky Sports commentary box, described it as an "absolutely brilliant" moment.
The legendary all-rounder, an England team-mate of Broad's father Chris, also scored 5,200 runs, including 14 centuries, in a glittering Test career from 1977 to 1992.
"He has been a big influence on me," said Broad.
"He is a huge legend of English cricket and someone who has given a lot back to this team.
"In the past couple of years he has spent more time in the changing room and the guys really listen to him."
Meanwhile, West Indies part-time off-spinner Kraigg Brathwaite has been reported for a suspect bowling action.
The 24-year-old, who bowled six overs at Edgbaston, must have his action tested within 14 days but is still allowed to bowl during that time.
The second Test at Headingley begins on Friday.
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The owners of Cork Wine Bar, a restaurant and bar in Washington, D.C., have filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump and his Trump International Hotel in the District, arguing that because the hotel is connected to a sitting President unfairly pulls business from local restaurants and event spaces.
In the complaint, lawyers for Cork Wine Bar allege that Trump’s hotel has an “unfair advantage” prohibited in the hotel’s lease for the Old Post Office building, which has a provision stating no elected official may benefit from it.
The Trump Organization dismissed the lawsuit in a one line statement.
“The lawsuit is a publicity stunt completely lacking in merit,” Alan Garten, the Trump Organization’s general counsel, said in a statement.
In a press conference announcing the lawsuit on Thursday, the owners of the bar said that they have seen a downturn in business since the inauguration.
One of the owners, Diane Gross, told reporters that they are not challenging Trump’s policies, but are instead concerned that his link to the hotel is unfairly pulling business from other venues in the area.
Cork is not seeking damages through the legal challenge, but the lawsuit lays out three possible remedies: the hotel suspending operations for the rest of Trump’s presidency, Trump and his family fully divesting from interests in the hotel, or Trump stepping down as President.
In the lawsuit, Cork’s lawyers argue that an increase in business at the Trump hotel after the election was due to a “perception” among customers that “it would be to their advantage in their dealing with President Donald J. Trump and other agencies of the United States Government if they patronized the Hotel.” The lawsuit also gives several examples of Trump associates mentioning the hotel since the election, including White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer touting the hotel at a press conference just before inauguration.
The lawyers for Cork also note that Trump is in violation of a provision in his lease from the federal government’s General Services Administration that prohibits an elected official from benefitting from the hotel.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer was asked about Trump’s support for small businesses in light of the lawsuit on Thursday afternoon. In response, Spicer said Trump is a “champion” of small business.
The Trump Organization did not immediately return TPM’s request for comment.
Read the complaint:
This post has been updated.
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Just last week, I published a post exploring whether or not Cardinal Burke may have taken the formal act of correction off the table.
At the conclusion to that post I wrote, “Perhaps His Eminence will be asked about this directly in a future interview (which, if history is any indication, cannot be very far removed from today).”
Well, we didn’t have to wait very long at all.
On August 14th, the Wanderer published Part 2 of an interview with His Eminence wherein he indicated that the formal act of correction is not only on the table, it may in fact be the precursor to something far more significant.
Here, I’d like to delve into the relevant parts of the discussion concerning the correction, but before we get that…
Perhaps you may have noticed that Cardinal Burke’s interviews often contain thinly veiled insults aimed directly at Francis. Well, this one was no different. In response to an invitation to recall the life of Cardinal Meisner, he said:
He was a wonderful pastor and was never one to say that those who supported the Church’s teaching were legalists and do not care about people, that they were throwing stones at them. He was a very loving pastor who understood that a good shepherd of the flock must teach the truth to the faithful in its entirety.
Here’s the translation (even though I am certain very few actually need it):
Francis is not a wonderful pastor. He says that those who support the Church’s teaching are legalists and do not care about people, that they are throwing stones at them. Nor is Francis a loving pastor who understands that a good shepherd of the flock must teach the truth to the faithful in its entirety.
This, I suppose, is how the game is played in Rome…
Returning to the main topic at hand, the interviewer asked:
Setting aside the question of timing, please explain how the process for the execution of a “formal correction” would proceed should a response to the five dubia not be forthcoming? [Sic] How is a formal correction officially submitted, how is it addressed within the Church’s hierarchal structure, etc.?
First, let me say that I am unaware to what extent, if any, the interviewer had to agree to avoid certain topics going in, but apart from this, why on earth would he set aside “the question of timing”?
I mean, the dubia is about to have a birthday for crying out loud!
In any event, it seems as if the answer to that question is, if not given, at least suggested later in the interview. We’ll get to that in a moment.
Let’s take a look at Cardinal Burke’s reply piecemeal:
The process has not been frequently invoked in the Church, and not now for several centuries. There has been the correction of past Holy Fathers on significant points, but not in a doctrinal way.
NB: His Eminence is saying that this is not a matter of discipline (as the proponents of Amoris Laetitia like to contend); it is a matter of doctrine.
It seems to me that the essence of the correction is quite simple. On the one hand, one sets forth the clear teaching of the Church; on the other hand, what is actually being taught by the Roman Pontiff is stated. If there is a contradiction, the Roman Pontiff is called to conform his own teaching in obedience to Christ and the Magisterium of the Church.
In other words, as things currently stand, Francis’ teaching is not in conformity with that of Christ and the Magisterium of the Church, and so he will be called upon to conform.
At this, we arrive at one of the most crucially important parts of the interview as Cardinal Burke continues:
The question is asked, “How would this be done?” It is done very simply by a formal declaration to which the Holy Father would be obliged to respond.
NB: Once a correction is issued, Francis will be obliged to respond.
In my previously mentioned post concerning the correction, I pointed out how inconsistent, and even contradictory, Cardinal Burke has been at times when commenting upon the matter. Herein lies yet another example.
In a January 2017 interview with the Italian publication, La Verità, Cardinal Burke said of the dubia:
There is no ultimatum to the Pope, but we must go forward: the faith is in danger
As I stated at the time, the dubia has always been an “ultimatum;” a proposal that essentially demands, “Do this, or else suffer the consequences.”
Now, Cardinal Burke is plainly admitting that this is the case.
Again, in the interviewer’s defense, perhaps he was forbidden to ask it, but the next logical question is obvious:
You state that he would be ‘obliged.’ What consequences will he face for failing to do so?
Though it wasn’t asked, it was in my estimation answered, and in this case, Cardinal Burke is demonstrating consistency.
Before we get to that answer, let’s consider “the question of timing.”
Cardinal Burke went on to say:
Pope Francis has chosen not to respond to the five dubia, so it is now necessary simply to state what the Church teaches about marriage, the family, acts that are intrinsically evil, and so forth.
As we have come to learn, one cannot put too much stock in any one thing the cardinal states. Even so, one might take note that he did not say “it will be necessary” to proceed to the correction; he said “it is now necessary.”
The implication is that it is coming soon.
If I was foolish enough to place a bet on where this merry-go-round is headed, my money would be on some time shortly after September 19th – the one year anniversary of the dubia’s issuance.
As for the form of the correction, Cardinal Burke stated:
So then, the next step would be a formal declaration stating the clear teachings of the Church as set forth in the dubia. Furthermore, it would be stated that these truths of the Faith are not being clearly set forth by the Roman Pontiff. In other words, instead of asking the questions as was done in the dubia, the formal correction would be stating the answers as clearly taught by the Church.
Regular readers of this space may recall my multi-part series with Robert Siscoe concerning whether or not Francis is a formal heretic. I argued that he is; Robert that he is not. We both agreed, however, that the sacred hierarchy has a duty in such cases to make a formal declaration.
Such a declaration is not a matter of judging, properly speaking, since a pope (if you will allow in this case) is judged by no man, rather it is a matter of announcing to the Church what he himself has revealed.
The purpose of the declaration, as described by 18th century theologian, Fr. Pietro Ballerini, is as follows:
So that he might not cause damage to the rest, he would have to have his heresy and contumacy publicly proclaimed, so that all might be able to be equally on guard in relation to him.
This is essentially what Cardinal Burke is talking about:
…a formal declaration stating … that these truths of the Faith are not being clearly set forth by the Roman Pontiff.
Granted, Cardinal Burke chose to employ less precise wording than Fr. Ballerini.
No surprise there. After all, if the interview didn’t amount to a certain number of puzzle pieces for the reader to assemble one would have to wonder if it was “fake news”!
Perhaps the most noteworthy part of the interview pertains to Cardinal Burke’s response to a question about the CDF.
He was asked:
During his tenure as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), Gerhard Cardinal Mueller was a steadfast defender that confusing statements in Amoris Laetitia must be interpreted in line with the Church’s traditional teaching on reception of Holy Communion by civilly divorced and remarried Catholics. Do you foresee any possibility of a reversal in this teaching from the CDF in the aftermath of his non-renewal as Prefect?
Pay close attention to Cardinal Burke’s response:
It is not possible for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith to declare otherwise. If it did, it would be out of communion with the Church. What Cardinal Mueller has set forth is exactly what has always been taught by the Church. In more recent times, paragraph 84 of Pope St. John Paul II’s apostolic exhortation Familiaris Consortio has pronounced the Church’s constant teaching. So then, that type of reversal is simply not possible.
When the pieces are assembled, it would seem that this is His Eminence’s answer to the unasked question:
You state that Francis would be ‘obliged’ to respond to the formal correction; presumably, in conformity with what has always been taught by the Church. What would be the consequences of his failure to do so?
The answer: He would be out of communion with the Church.
In this, there is consistency.
Recall Cardinal Burke’s December 2016 interview with Catholic World Report wherein he was asked:
Some people are saying that the pope could separate himself from communion with the Church. Can the pope legitimately be declared in schism or heresy?
To which Cardinal Burke replied:
If a Pope would formally profess heresy he would cease, by that act, to be the Pope. It’s automatic. And so, that could happen.
As I suggested, no one knows where this merry-go-round is headed. What we have before us is a series of puzzle pieces that, once put together, may or may not tell the tale.
Even so, it seems that the formal act of correction, which now appears likely, is not the end game, but rather just might be (please, God) a step in what may lead to Francis being openly declared an anti-pope.
Yes, all of this speculating is growing tiresome, but these are the cards we’ve been dealt.
In any event, it looks like the next month or so (as October 13 approaches) is going to be very interesting indeed.
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For those of you business people who commute regularly by train, there is word from China about a new engine that is shattering speed records and promising to get you to your destination in considerably less time.
Pictured above is the modified CRH-380A train, built by Sifang Locomotive & Rolling Stock Co., that is shattering speed records set by its big brother, the CRH-380. Capable of speeds of 310 mph, the CRH-380A travels a neck-breaking 130 mph faster than the CRH-380 making it the fastest train in the world. What is fascinating is the fact that the engine doesn’t use some sort of special maglev track to accomplish these kinds of speeds, just the same old steel rails that have been used since the invention of the locomotive.
Said to have been inspired by the shape of an ancient Chinese sword, the CRH-380A achieves its incredible speed by using a power plant that has a maximum power draw of 22,800 kilowatts, double that of the engine in the 380. Along with the larger engine, Sifang engineers lightened the body of the train by creating it out of plastics that are reinforced with carbon fiber. While this doesn’t offer much protection in the case of a crash (not that trains crash often), it certainly cuts down on the weight of the vehicle.
Along with carbon fiber, the train was constructed with magnesium alloy and sound dampening materials to cut down on the wind noise for people riding inside of the cabins. The elongated bullet nose at the head of the six-car train also comes into play as it’s engineered to cut down on the total wind resistance of the train.
The CRH-380A has been approved by The Ministry of Railways and the Ministry of Science and Technology in China for use in January of next year. It will be used for passenger transport as well as studies on the effects of high-speed travel on both the rails and train itself. This puts China well ahead (again) of the US in terms of rail-based transport. The Amtrak Acela, the fastest train in America, tops out at the pedestrian speed of 165 mph. To complete its daily run from Boston to Washington DC it takes the Acela seven hours — if the CRH-380A was placed on the same run, it could complete the trip in a little under three and a half hours. A run time like that would give a serious challenge to air-based shuttles between the two cities.
Read more at China Daily
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The GOP's fiscal conservatism has always been a sham.
The Republican Party has spent the majority of the Trump presidency at odds with itself. Despite majorities in Congress and control of The White House—albeit by a man whose sense of the bully pulpit doesn't extend very far beyond Twitter—the party has come up empty-handed on marquee initiatives. Nearly every regulatory agency is being eaten from the inside out by industry crony appointees, but this "regulatory capture," as it's called, is the bare minimum that the barons of the GOP expect. In late-June, during a massive weekend retreat between Republican politicians and donors, public officials were told that their reelection piggybanks may get skinnier if progress wasn't made. From The Guardian:
In between meetings, Dave Brat, a Virginia Republican representative, predicted dire consequences in next year’s midterm elections should his party fail to deliver on its repeated promises. “If we don’t get healthcare, none of us are coming back,” he said in a brief interview. “We said for seven years you’re gonna repeal Obamacare. It’s nowhere near repealed.” It’s the same for tax reform, Brat said: “We don’t get taxes through, we’re all going home. Pack the bags.”
Healthcare came up short largely due to a propagandized agenda at odds with both reality and underlying public opinion. It takes an awfully complex strategy to pass insurance reforms that, by every objective measure, would make the vast majority of Americans more vulnerable. (See Paul Ryan's very bad PowerPoint presentation.) Ryan, McConnell, & Co. failed to meet the crucial September 30th due date for repeal-and-replace, but there's a possibility of a zombie bill down the road if the budgetary circumstances present themselves.
With all the trick plays on healthcare resulting in fumbles, Republicans are going back to basics: tax cuts.
Putting aside the poker-faced lie by Trump economic advisor Gary Cohn that the wealthy won't get a tax cut, and putting aside the highly questionable relationship Republicans like to cite between tax cuts and broad-based growth, there's the unquestionable fact that cutting taxes strips government of revenue and causes deficits to balloon.
If you've been a sentient civic being for the past decade, then surely you're aware of the GOP's unrelenting obstruction of the Obama agenda, based on what they said was a deep, genuine, heartfelt concern for the rising debt. Washington bureaucrats irresponsibly "spend money today and send the bill to our children and grandchildren," the worn line goes. Deficit hawks, they call themselves, implying seriousness and principled singularity. And the press has, for years, fallen hook, line, and sinker for it.
But now, as tax reform rollout begins, leading Republicans are starting to give up the charade, in official statements to reporters:
It's another odd twist in the post-fact era; the appearance of telling the truth matters so little that politicians are openly admitting their lies.
But there's no reason to be "shocked and chagrined" by this hypocrisy like Jackie Chiles in Seinfeld. There's been adequate evidence for the press to call out this chicanery all along. Modern Republican leaders have never, in actuality, been deficit hawks. This hawking was—as Walker admits on the behalf of his committee—a cover story to disguise callous opposition to social programs.
Here are the receipts: Ronald Reagan's tax cuts raised deficits. Bill Clinton passed compromises that balanced the budget (before George W. Bush blew through the surplus with two wars and tax cuts) and Obama, in spite of The Great Recession's gigantic fiscal pressure, lowered the deficit throughout his time in office—often at the expense of cherished liberal priorities. To frankly point out these facts is not to champion the Democrats or deficit-cutting as a policy priority. But the last Republican president to preside over a balanced budget was Dwight Eisenhower. Characterizing his partisan descendants as the nation's miserly stewards is, at this point, outright misleading.
If Republicans were to execute their donors' wishes and follow through with the new tax-cut friendly budget resolution proposed Friday that, according to early estimates could add $1.5 trillion to the deficit over 10 years, then it may be time for reporters to officially retire the term "deficit hawk," which means fake wonks like Paul Ryan may need to find something else to call themselves.
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They arrived by the thousands for Max Steinberg’s funeral. In flip-flops and tank tops, dressed in youth movement uniforms and army unit T-shirts, with yarmulkes and hats, bareheaded and with sunglasses, they filed in to the cemetery at Mount Herzl, standing in uncharacteristic silence under the hot sun to pay their respects.
“We’re here to give the family the feeling that we’re with them,” said Nirit Friedlander, a Jerusalemite who came with two friends. “They should feel that we’re holding them.”
“He’s a lone soldier,” said Yisrael Schwartz, another local. “He’s part of us.”
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It was the sentiment voiced by everyone who spoke at the hour-and-a-half-long funeral.
Steinberg, 24, a sharpshooter in the Golani Brigade, was one of 13 soldiers killed on day 13 of Operation Protective Edge, in heavy fighting in the Shejaiya neighborhood of Gaza City.
He was a volunteer in the IDF, a designated lone soldier who hailed from Woodland Hills, California; who didn’t speak much Hebrew after less than a year in the army.
His close friend Michael, whose Beersheba family adopted Steinberg as their lone soldier, said that his own sister tried to get him to study the language.
“Max would say, ‘I’ll be all right, I know the commands,’” said Michael.
His parents — each speaking, in English, a few sentences at a time — made it clear that they didn’t regret his decision to join the army and to serve in a combat unit.
“I want to answer a question that’s on the mind of many people,” said his father, Stuart Steinberg, “about whether we regret letting him go, and to give an unequivocal no.”
Evie Steinberg described her son’s childhood in suburban California, his surprising strength despite his small stature, his love of soccer and football, his quick, fast moves. It was his younger brother and sister, Jake and Paige, who convinced Max to join them on a Birthright trip, but it was Max who ended up in Israel, something he hadn’t expected, she said.
“He connected to Israel in a way he couldn’t have imagined,” said Evie Steinberg.
He only wanted to serve in Golani, said his mother, despite the risks of being in an elite unit.
He didn’t take no for an answer, said his father, referring to the army’s repeated questioning about whether he wanted to serve in a combat unit, given his volunteer status.
“He said, ‘If I’m not in Golani, then send me to jail or send me home,'” said his father. The army sent him home and when he returned to Israel, they finally accepted him to the unit.
Max was his siblings’ hero, said his brother and sister, an older brother who listened to them, encouraged them and loved them.
“How can I describe you?” wept his sister, Paige. “Max is just Max. You’re Maxie.”
They all spoke of his deep love and respect for reggae singer Bob Marley, whose songs and sentiments formed a core of Steinberg’s belief system.
“It was an obsession, but in the right way,” said his brother Jake, telling of the last time they were together, watching a documentary about the late reggae singer.
Matan Halik, an Israeli friend who met Max on Birthright, said Steinberg spoke of becoming a Birthright legend, similar to Michael Levin, another lone soldier who died in the 2006 Lebanon war.
“Max said, ‘Like Michael Levin, but I’ll live.’”
“In one thing you were right, brother: You are a legend,” he said.
“Max, you are a lion of Zion,” said his friend Michael, quoting the famous Bob Marley song.
It was the VIPs, including former Israel Ambassador Michael Oren, US Ambassador Dan Shapiro, MK Dov Lipman and Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, who spoke about Steinberg’s choice to become a lone soldier, and how to grapple with the fact that someone so new to Israel could contemplate dying to defend it.
“Volunteers always came here from other countries,” said Oren. “Many remained here, and over the decades, many more have joined them.”
“You can’t see this hill,” continued Oren, speaking to the Steinberg family. “But it is covered with thousands and thousands who came to pay their respects, even though you’ve never met them.”
The police confirmed that in fact, 30,000 people had come to the funeral of this lone soldier.
“I didn’t know him,” Oren said. “But I feel like I know him. That was my path too.”
Steinberg left his family to become a “Golanchik,” said Barkat, doing what he thought was the right thing to do.
Now, said Barkat, Steinberg would be buried next to two other soldiers who died this week, two other soldiers whose families originally came from other countries to find a home in Israel.
“Moshe Malko is to his right, from Ethiopia,” said Barkat. “And this afternoon, Dmitri Levitas, from Russia, will be buried here as well.”
The crowds dispersed as the funeral drew to a close, and wreaths of fresh flowers were placed on Steinberg’s grave.
“It’s hard to process,”said Hanit Ajami, making her way out of Mount Herzl to one of the Egged shuttle buses. “We all have boys in the army, but he did this on his own. We have to hold them as if they’re one of us.”
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The twists and turns just keep coming in the pioneering revenue-neutral carbon tax measure, Initiative 732, which will be on Tuesday’s ballot in Washington state.
First came pushback from the some environmental groups, including the Sierra Club. Now we have a new Public Disclosure Commission report for the No campaign showing that Koch Industries contributed $50,000 to the No campaign. The Koch brothers’ anti-science and anti-environment activities are well documented; it’s pretty interesting that the No campaign would want to be associated with them if climate change is truly something they care about. Perhaps more telling, this late round of dirty fossil fuel money is indicative of the strength and effectiveness of the I-732 policy and the threat it poses to the state’s — and the nation’s — biggest polluters and a signal for what’s to come.
Perhaps more telling, this late round of dirty fossil fuel money is indicative of the strength and effectiveness of the I-732 policy and the threat it poses to the state’s — and the nation’s — biggest polluters and a signal for what’s to come.
Even more surprising is that the Koch brothers and the No campaign are out of step with leading Republicans in Washington state and in Washington, D.C. Republican supporters of I-732 now include former U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton and former state Attorney General Rob McKenna, who narrowly lost the 2012 governor’s race. And leading conservative economist Greg Mankiw told The New York Times this week that I-732 could be a model for the nation because it takes a budget-friendly and business-friendly approach to climate action, one that sets a stable and predictable price on carbon and “recycles” carbon tax revenues by reducing existing taxes.
Instead of making government bigger or smaller, I-732 focuses on making government smarter. That’s why I-732 has gained support from both the left and the right. Our most recent endorsement on the left is from the Seattle Socialist Alternative.
READ MORE: Pay for carbon pollution? Why some environmentalists don’t support this state tax
This is truly a David vs. Goliath battle. Large establishment organizations on both the left and the right are pushing back against I-732 because it threatens the status quo. But the status quo is not acceptable when it comes to the future of our planet: In a nutshell, too many people have gotten too tired of seeing too little happen on the climate front. That’s how Carbon Washington managed to gather over 360,000 signatures (about 5 percent of the state population) last year to get the initiative on the ballot, putting it in the top 10 in Washington history. This grassroots momentum and unrelenting focus on addressing climate change is what led groups like Audubon Washington to support this campaign.
We continue to be encouraged by the latest poll results showing that undecided voters are moving towards a Yes vote. We have also received a wave of celebrity support for the policy. Last week Leonardo DiCaprio tweeted his support saying, “I-732 is a chance to create a clean energy future. Join @CarbonWA and @AudubonWA and vote #Yeson732.” Fisher Stevens, director of DiCaprio’s new climate change documentary Before the Flood shared his support for I-732, as did celebrities affiliated with Season 2 of Years of Living Dangerously, including Don Cheadle, Ed Norton , Nikki Reed, Lili Taylor and Ian Somerhalder.
Buoyed by these endorsements, our tireless volunteers, ranging from students to grandparents, are leading the state’s biggest voter education effort on climate change. For more details see the “Get the Facts” press release about I-732.
Watch economics correspondent Paul Solman’s report on Initiative 732 above
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Nearly half the titles read by children in a new national schools reading competition were read online, says literacy charity Booktrust.
Read for My School 2013 aimed to boost the numbers of primary pupils in England reading for pleasure.
Almost 100,000 nine to 11-year-olds, from 3,600 schools signed up.
"Children were sitting in their rooms using their iPads and Xboxes to read rather than for games," said Alison Keeley of Booktrust.
Between them, the children who took part read more than 400,000 books. Some 49% of these were read online from a free digital library of 46 titles from Penguin, Dorling Kindersley and Pearson.
A poll of their teachers suggested the e-library was particularly popular among boys and less-proficient readers.
"I think boys and poorer readers just prefer reading online. It's about making it different and more exciting, a different way to use their Xbox or iPad.
"The competition website allowed us to tell what format they were reading on. Some children were particularly motivated by the competition element", said Ms Keeley.
Comments from teachers suggested that suddenly the keenest readers "had their standing in class transformed", she added.
The competition, organised by Booktrust and The Pearson Foundation with support from the Department for Education, ran from January to March 2013.
Children had to log the books they read on the competition website and answer questions to prove that they had not just flicked through the pages.
They could choose from the 46 titles in the e-library or read any title they fancied in traditional book form as long as it fitted into one of eight competition categories.
The idea was to broaden children's reading tastes as they had to read at least one book from each category, ranging from "Laugh out Loud" funny reads to "Keep it Real" factual books and including history, animal stories , sci-fi, mystery and thrillers.
Top 10 most popular books from the competition online library 1. Titanic Tragedy by Jane Penrose
2. Cinderella: The Real Story by Jan Burchett and Sara Vogler
3. The Story of Chocolate by Caryn Jenner
4. My Brother's Famous Bottom by Jeremy Strong
5. Dead Sick: Incredible Medicine from History by Haydn Middleton and Jill McDougall
6. 101 Things to Do Before Secondary School by Louise Spilsbury
7. Prehistoric Predators by Haydn Middleton
8. The Story of Anne Frank by Brenda Ralph Lewis
9. The Hundred-Mile-An-Hour-Dog by Jeremy Strong
10. The Mystery of the Poisoned Pudding by Josh Lacey
Megan Benson, aged nine, from Devon won the prize for most prolific reader, devouring 273 books during the competition. Jack Casey, 10, from Wiltshire won the prize for the most interesting written responses to the books he read.
The most popular books in the e-library were a historical tale based on the sinking of the Titanic, a comedy version of Cinderella and a factual account of the story of chocolate. Overall comedy was the most popular category.
Children's author Jeremy Strong said: "I'm not at all surprised to see that funny books have come out top in this brilliant reading competition. I've always felt strongly that adding a sense of fun to stories is the best way to turn a child into a reader so I'm delighted to hear that thousands of children across the country feel the same."
Education minister Elizabeth Truss added: "I am delighted the competition has encouraged even the most reluctant children to pick up a book for the first time."
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OrbisGIS is a cross-platform open-source Geographic Information System (GIS) created by research and for research. It is leaded by CNRS within the French Lab-STICC laboratory (DECIDE team of Vannes) and licensed under GPLv3. OrbisGIS proposes new methods and techniques to model, represent, process and share spatial data, making it easy to monitor geographical territories and manage their evolution.
In a world ever-increasingly aware of its ecological footprint and the relevance of sustainable development, a systematic approach to evaluating public policies is of paramount importance. Such an approach must take into account relevant environmental, social and economic factors to facilitate efficient decision making and planning. As an integrated modeling platform containing analytical tools for computing various indicators at different spatial and temporal scales, OrbisGIS is already an indispensable instrument for many. Come see what all the buzz is about!
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On April 23, 2017, Technicolor's mp3 licensing program for certain mp3 related patents and software of Technicolor and Fraunhofer IIS has been terminated.
We thank all of our licensees for their great support in making mp3 the defacto audio codec in the world, during the past two decades.
The development of mp3 started in the late 80s at Fraunhofer IIS, based on previous development results at the University Erlangen-Nuremberg. Although there are more efficient audio codecs with advanced features available today, mp3 is still very popular amongst consumers. However, most state-of-the-art media services such as streaming or TV and radio broadcasting use modern ISO-MPEG codecs such as the AAC family or in the future MPEG-H. Those technologies, that have been developed with major contributions from Fraunhofer IIS, can deliver more features and a higher audio quality at much lower bitrates compared to mp3.
Further details about the termination of the mp3 licensing program by Technicolor and Fraunhofer are available here.
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Eight Japanese pornographic film producers are demanding compensation from Taiwanese cable and telecom companies they say are using their work without authorization, a lawyer representing the producers said today.
The case may depend on whether Taiwanese authorities rule that adult films are creative works protected by copyright law.
Chen Shih-ing said that the Japanese producers are seeking royalties from Chunghwa Telecom Co. Ltd., Taiwan Mobile Co. Ltd., and other unnamed Taiwanese telecom and cable TV providers to make up for an estimated New Taiwan dollars 1 billion ($30 million) in annual losses.
We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view. From 15p €0.18 $0.18 $0.27 a day, more exclusives, analysis and extras.
He said the companies are allowing customers to download the films onto a variety of platforms, including mobile phones, without providing compensation in return.
Speaking to reporters Taipei, Chen said he was basing his case on a Taiwanese law assigning intellectual property rights to creative works. He said his clients will give Taiwanese companies one month to negotiate before they face legal action.
In a statement, Taiwan's Intellectual Property Office said the question of whether adult films are creative works needed to be decided on a case-by-base basis.
A Chunghwa official declined to comment on the case, while Taiwan Mobile said it was looking into the issue.
We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view.
At The Independent, no one tells us what to write. That’s why, in an era of political lies and Brexit bias, more readers are turning to an independent source. Subscribe from just 15p a day for extra exclusives, events and ebooks – all with no ads.
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Over the course of the Premier League season, BBC Sport football pundit Mark Lawrenson has pitted his predicting wits against the likes of Hulk Hogan,Goran Ivanisevic and Lethal Bizzle.
After predicting a total of 379 results (he did not make a prediction before the rearranged Chelsea v Reading game on 22 August), the final table according to Lawro is below.
The last column on the right shows how many places higher or lower each team finished in this table compared to the actual Premier League standings.
ARROWS DENOTE DIFFERENCE TO REAL TABLE POS TEAM P W D L PTS DIFF +/- 1. Man Utd 38 29 9 0 96 0 2. Arsenal 38 28 7 3 91 +2 3. Man City 38 25 11 2 86 -1 4. Chelsea 37 23 10 4 79 -1 5. Everton 38 21 10 7 73 +1 6. Liverpool 38 19 11 8 68 +1 7. Tottenham 38 16 12 10 60 -2 8. QPR 38 16 8 14 56 +12 9. Newcastle 38 15 10 13 55 +7 10 Sunderland 38 11 16 11 49 +7 11. Stoke 38 12 12 14 48 +2 13. West Brom 38 11 4 23 37 -5 13. Wigan 38 10 8 20 38 +5 14. West Ham 38 10 7 21 37 -4 15 Fulham 38 10 5 23 35 -3 16. Norwich 38 9 6 23 33 -5 17. Southampton 38 9 3 26 30 -3 18. Swansea 38 6 12 20 30 -9 19. Aston Villa 38 5 12 21 27 -4 20. Reading 37 4 8 25 20 -1
According to the predictions, Sir Alex Ferguson would have bowed out by leading his Manchester United side through an unbeaten Premier League season with a record 96 points.
QPR fans would have been rejoicing at finishing in eighth position with 56 points (31 more than they actually accrued), whereas poor Swansea City would have been relegated.
Nonetheless, Lawro's overall record is quite impressive. If you had made bets based on his predictions this season, you would actually have made more money than if you had staked your cash on the results calculated as most likely by the bookmakers.
The ex-Liverpool defender turned BBC football expert correctly predicted 200 of the 379 results (win, lose or draw), giving a 52.77% success rate. The bookmakers successfully predicted 199 correct results (ie the home win, draw and away win result with the shortest odds), giving a success rate of 52.36%.
Despite his impressive overall record, Lawro did predict 15 straight defeats for Southampton
If you had put £1 on the shortest odds offered by the bookies in each of the 380 games (ie the result they thought most likely), then you would have lost £28.91 over the course of the season. If you had put £1 on all 379 results Lawro predicted, you would have made £18.60.
What would have happened if you had applied a fixed formula to your predictions though?
One simple method would have been to predict a home win for every match as this is, on average, the most likely result during the course of a season. This result occurred 43.42% of the time (165 times out of 380), so it would not have beaten Lawro.
You could add a level of sophistication, by predicting a home win for each of the teams except when they are facing one of the top five. So when the top five were playing away against sides in sixth to 20th positions, you would predict an away win. When two top five sides play each other,you predict a home win.
This would have given the correct result 50.53% of the time, which still means Lawro would have come out on top.
If I could successfully predict all the results, do you really think I'd be here? I'd be on a yacht in the Caribbean drinking a gin and tonic Mark Lawrenson
However, the former Liverpool and Republic of Ireland defender still has some way to go to please all of his followers.
Julian Adamson contacted BBC Sport to say he and some friends found Lawro's predictions so predictable that they played a game called 'Predicting Lawro's Predictions'.
Julian argued that Lawro used only three results for most of his predictions: 1-1, 2-1 and 2-0. And the statistics do largely bear this out. Lawro only predicted that a side would score three goals in 17 of his 758 predictions (2.24%), whereas this actually happened 120 times (15.78%).
And he did not predict that a side would score four goals or more in any of the 379 games. In reality, this happened 43 times out of the 760 individual scores (5.66%).
Lawro does not really go for away wins. He predicted that eight teams (Aston Villa, Fulham, Norwich, Reading, Southampton, Swansea, West Brom and West Ham) would not win ANY of their away fixtures this season. In fact, Villa, Swansea and West Brom all won more away games (five) than sixth-placed Everton (four).
He predicted that Fulham and West Brom would lose EVERY away game (scoring only four and six goals respectively), and drew the ire of Southampton fans by predicting they would lose 15 straight games at one stage of the season.
Lawrenson says: "It's meant to be a bit of fun, although I've lost count of the number of times a fan has stopped me outside a ground to say 'your predictions are rubbish'.
"I respond by saying 'if I could successfully predict all the results, do you really think I'd be here? I'd be on a yacht in the Caribbean drinking a gin and tonic'."
He admits he does not usually employ a strategy for predicting results, preferring to use "gut instinct". Saying that, he was not surprised by some of our findings.
"I probably only go for away wins for the top half dozen teams, because teams below them don't win too many away games. And perhaps I don't predict drubbings because I don't want to upset fans of the losing side.
"The first 10 weeks of the season are probably the trickiest, because you don't have too much idea about form at that stage.
"You've also got to remember that I do the predictions on a Thursday, to go up on the website on a Friday, which means I don't know all the injury news at the time. So I'm delighted to hear I've beaten the bookies, because in my experience they don't get too many things wrong."
Additional reporting by Simon Austin
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Random behaviour is often required in JavaScript, from drawing stars scattered across the night sky to animating chaotic attractors. But there are many different kinds of randomness, and the type you need will differ depending on the application.
Basic Randomness
The simplest form of randomness is the Math.random() function built into JavaScript. In the console:
> Math.random() 0.19401081069372594
Math.random() always returns a floating-point number between 0 and 1. Technically, the number returned by Math.random() could be 0, but will never be exactly 1.
Because it’s so frequently used, Math.random() is often placed inside its own function in a script:
function getRandom() { return Math.random(); }
The problem, of course, is that the function will always create a random number within a very limited range; most of the other code recipes on this page are designed to address this.
Randomness Between Numbers: Min Included, Max Excluded
Extending this functionality requires a little bit of math:
Floating Point
function getRandomFloat(min, max) { return Math.random() * (max - min) + min; } getRandomFloat(11, 101) > 75.31898734299466
Integer
function getRandomInt(min, max) { return Math.floor(Math.random() * (max - min)) + min; } getRandomInt(10, 20) > 12
Random Integer In Range, Both Min & Max Included
function getRandomInRange(min, max) { return Math.floor(Math.random() * (max - min + 1)) + min; } getRandomInRange(1, 10) > 7
Coin Toss (Random True / False)
If you want a simple random 0 or 1 to represent a coin toss:
function coinToss() { return Math.floor(Math.random() * 2); } coinToss(); > 0
If you prefer actual true and false values:
function coinToss() { return (Math.floor(Math.random() * 2) === 0); } coinToss(); > true
Or alternatively:
function coinToss() { Math.random()
Or if you want to associate any other words with the coin sides ( yes / no, heads / tails, etc):
function coinFlip() { return (Math.floor(Math.random() * 2) === 0) ? "up" : "down"; } coinToss(); > up
Random With Exclusions
For a limited range of integers: create an array of numbers that you’d like to draw from and select randomly from the array:
var numPool = [ 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 10 ], rand = numPool[Math.floor(Math.random() * numPool.length)];
For something a little more dynamic: add an array of the numbers you want to exclude, and an empty array to contain the result of filtering the first array into the second:
var numPool = [ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 ]; var excludePool = [ 3, 4 ]; var filteredPool = [];
Then loop through the numPool array, test if the number drawn from the array exists in excludePool , and place the result in filteredPool :
for (var i = 0; i < numPool.length; i++) { if (excludePool.indexOf(numPool[i]) === -1) { filteredPool.push(numPool[i]); } }
Finally, draw a random number from filteredPool :
var rand = filteredPool[Math.floor(Math.random() * filteredPool.length)];
Random, Non-Repeating
For a small set of numbers: create an array filled with elements, shuffle them randomly, put the results into a new array, then pop out the shuffled elements one at a time:
var numPool = [ 13, 21, 36, 14, 27, 10 ]; function shuffle(numPool) { for(var j, x, i = numPool.length; i; j = parseInt(Math.random() * i), x = numPool[--i], numPool[i] = numPool[j], numPool[j] = x); return numPool; }; var randomResult = shuffle(numPool); while( randomResult.length > 0 ) { console.log( randomResult.pop() ); }
For a larger set of numbers, create and fill the array with random integers, rejecting any that have been previously generated:
var numReserve = [] while (numReserve.length < 12) { var randomNumber = Math.ceil(Math.random() * 1000); var found = false; for (var i = 0; i < numReserve.length; i++) { if (numReserve[i] === randomNumber){ found = true; break; } } if (!found) { numReserve[numReserve.length]=randomNumber; } }
In the code above, numReserve is filled with 12 random numbers between 0 and 1000; the numbers can then be lifted from the array.
Cryptographic Randomness
None of these methods create numbers with enough randomness for cryptographically secure functions (and arguably, Math.random() isn’t nearly random enough). For those, we can use the Web Cryptography API by creating a typedArray :
var cryptoStor = new Uint16Array(8);
(In this case, we’re creating an array with eight different slots that can each contain an unsigned 16-bit integer. Other interger options include Int8Array , Uint8Array , int16Array , Int32Array and Uint32Array .
Then, fill the array with random numbers of the defined type:
window.crypto.getRandomValues(cryptoStor);
Showing the collected values in the console:
> [43484, 57947, 46691, 49849, 24272, 11827, 28203, 17423]
The Web Cryptography API has good support in modern browsers, although it is vendor prefixed in some cases.
Image by Philippe Put, used under a Creative Commons license
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The first three seasons of the TV show Arrested Development aired on Fox from 2003 to 2006. Hardly anybody watched it.
In its final season, Arrested Development ranked 123rd in viewership among 156 primetime TV shows. Four times as many people watched Charlie Sheen’s Two and A Half Men, and three times as many watched Donald Trump’s The Apprentice. "Arrested Development is watched by critics,” The New York Times TV critic wrote in 2004, “but it deserves a bigger, perhaps better audience.”
That audience never materialized. In April 2006, Fox announced the show’s cancellation.
Arrested Development is now considered by many to be a masterpiece. Time magazine listed it among the 100 greatest shows of all time, and IGN named it the funniest show ever made—just above the Simpsons and Seinfeld. The show received so much post-mortem love that it was brought back by Netflix for a fourth season in 2013—seven years after its original cancellation. A fifth season is set to arrive in 2017.
Until its resurrection, Arrested Development was destined to be part of the grand tradition of short-lived cult TV shows. We now live in the golden age of niche television—with Hulu and Netflix saving TV shows with devoted but small audiences. But this is a new phenomenon. In the recent past, shows without broad appeal were quickly cancelled.
What are the other Arrested Developments—the cancelled shows that had devoted but niche fan bases during their brief runs?
To answer that question, we collected data on the number of seasons, episodes, and user reviews of thousands of television shows listed on the Internet Movie Database (IMDB). (The site’s name is a bit of a misnomer as it also contains tons of television data.)
Using these data, we identified about 500 shows that met the following criteria:
The show was cancelled after three seasons or fewer
The last episode aired no later than 2013
The show aired in prime time
The show was originally on an American network
We then ranked these short-lived, cancelled shows by the number of user ratings to find the show with the biggest cult. The number of user ratings is a good but imperfect proxy for fan devotion and popularity. (The three shows with the most user ratings are Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, and The Walking Dead.)
The following table shows the top twenty short-lived shows with the most user ratings. Arrested Development would top the list with over 213,000 ratings had it not returned for a fourth season.
Data: IMDB; As of September 28, 2016.
By our measure, the space western Firefly is the quintessential cult classic. Though only fourteen episodes aired before its cancellation in 2003, Firefly has received over 190,000 ratings on IMDB. This makes it the 37th most reviewed show of all time, just behind The Sopranos and The Wire.
Firefly, created by the future Avengers director Joss Whedon, inspired a seriously loyal following. Devotees refer to themselves as “browncoats” after the show’s good guy rebels, and more than a decade after the show’s cancellation, Firefly fan sites, Wikia pages, and Reddits remain aflame. Astronaut Steven Swanson even brought his Firefly DVDs to the international space station.
This frenzied devotion to a short-lived show is unprecedented even compared to other cult classics. This scatter plot shows the number of episodes versus the number of ratings for the more than 500 shows with three seasons or fewer.
Of the twenty shows in our list of cult classics, all but one last aired in the 21st Century. This is likely due to short-term memories and IMDB raters skewing young.
The only pre-2000 show to conquer our measure’s recency bias is David Lynch’s surreal whodunit Twin Peaks. The show only lasted two seasons from 1989 to 1990, but it has since become a cult phenomenon. Many critics believe that the show paved the way for today’s auteurist, prestige television. Matt Soller Seitz writes for New York magazine, “The arty, boundary-breaking drama as we now know it wouldn't exist without Twin Peaks...”
This analysis suggests that cult classics tend to be science-fiction or mysteries. Eleven of these shows belong to one or both of these genres.
The only comedy in the top ten is Freaks and Geeks. Canceled after only 18 episodes, Freaks and Geeks spawned future stars like Seth Rogen (Knocked Up), James Franco (Spider-Man), Jason Segel (The Muppets), Linda Cardellini (ER), Rashida Jones (Parks and Recreation) and Martin Starr (Silicon Valley), among others. The show is number one on TV Guide’s list of “Best Shows That Got Cut Short.”
Number two on TV Guide’s “Got Cut Short” rankings is My So-Called Life—the most notable absence from our list. My So-Called Life lasted for just one season of 19 episodes, but is now considered a TV classic that depicted teenage life with rare authenticity.
Though My So-Called Life does not make our list above, which is based on total number of ratings, it does make the top ten when we look at the quality of ratings received. The following chart displays the twenty shows with the highest average IMDB rating among canceled shows. We only include shows with over 10,000 reviews.
If they were on today, shows like Deadwood, Party Down, and Pushing Daisies might have been saved from their early obsolescence by Netflix. But unfortunately we will never see their protagonists’ full stories.
Maybe that is what fuels the long afterlives of short-lived but much loved shows: the fact that the fans can fill in so much of the show’s fictional world—and debate and dream up what might have been.
Our next article explores the rise and fall of 1-900 numbers. To get notified when we post it → join our email list.
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oregon house 3.7.14.JPG
The Oregon Legislature adjourned the 2014 session on Friday.
(Harry Esteve/The Oregonian)
SALEM -- The Oregon Legislature called it good on Friday, ending a session that
in Washington County, jump-started a big
and allowed cities to ban -- at least temporarily -- medical marijuana shops.
Other big-ticket and volatile issues such as the
,
, recreational
and expanded liquor sales were left on the cutting room floor.
The 33-day session left some lawmakers frustrated that it was too short to work on complicated or thorny issues, but too long to prevent nearly every lawmaker from trying to get through a pet bill or two.
“We made prudent adjustments to our budget and didn’t break the bank,” said Senate President
, D-Salem. “We passed key public policy legislation in an overwhelmingly bipartisan way with more than 100 unanimous votes in the Senate. We did the job Oregonians said they wanted us to do and did it within the deadlines approved by the voters.”
Not everybody thought so highly of the session, which came nine months before the November elections and attracted plenty of criticism, particularly from minority Republicans, for politicking and churning out campaign fodder.
“Of the 33 days in the Capitol, the majority party spent 32 days playing politics,” said House Minority Leader
, R-Powell Butte. “With less than 24 hours left, Democrats finally revealed their budget to the public and Republican legislators. This is clearly not how Oregonians expected their elected officials to act when they voted for an additional short session to address budget issues and emergencies.”
Before the session even began, legislative leaders sought to lower expectations for big initiatives. So did Gov.
, who spent much of the session deflecting or ignoring a barrage of Republican criticism for the failed health insurance exchange website, Cover Oregon.
Their predictions of modest lawmaking proved correct. Even the final day was low-key, missing the aloha shirts, singing and we-survived-it sense of camaraderie that has marked past sessions.
When the dust settles, the session may become known more for partisan showdowns and political positioning than for substantial achievements.
WHAT FLEW
Land use
-- Lawmakers unanimously approved House Bill 4078, which expanded the Urban Growth Boundary and established urban and rural reserves in Washington County. The compromise measure brought together developers, conservationists and local governments -- all prodded to agree by an Oregon Court of Appeals decision that scuttled a 40-year regional growth plan.
$200 million for OHSU
-- When Nike founder Phil Knight offered Oregon Health & Science University a $500 million donation for cancer research if the university could match it, officials turned to the Legislature for help. The “big ask” as it has been called at the Capitol, was granted, but with a long list of conditions. The state will issue bonds that will allow OHSU to begin recruiting top researchers and planning a new South Waterfront building.
Mascots
-- Oregon public schools will be able to keep Native American mascots if they conform to rules that the Oregon Board of Education will establish under Senate Bill 1509. The board passed a sweeping ban on mascots in 2012. The 2013 Legislature passed a bill installing a loophole in the ban, but Kitzhaber vetoed it. But lawmakers and the governor found common ground this year.
TV taxes
-- The way big broadcasters’ tax bills are calculated will change. Under House Bill 4138, Oregon will tax broadcasters such as NBC and even Netflix based on their in-state sales instead of the size of their audience that resides here. Estimates suggest the bill could raise $900,000.
Cover Oregon fixes
-- Lawmakers passed three bills aimed at helping Oregonians through the botched rollout of the health insurance exchange and avoiding similar disasters. One bill ensured that 4,000 Oregonians in a high-risk insurance pool can continue to receive coverage through the end of March. A second bill extends whistleblower protections to Cover Oregon employees and allows the governor to remove all Cover Oregon board members in a single year. It would also direct Cover Oregon to seek a federal waiver to extend the enrollment deadline by a month to April 30. A third bill requires independent quality assurance reviews for information technology projects that cost more than $5 million and for certain other projects.
WHAT FLOPPED
CRC
-- An effort to revive the Columbia River Crossing as a $2.8 billion Oregon-led project failed to garner support in the Senate. Now that lawmakers have gaveled out, Kitzhaber is expected to declare the project dead. It’s unclear how supporters of the project could revive it, ending more than a decade of work on replacing the Interstate 5 bridge connecting Portland and Vancouver.
Gun control
-- A big crowd gathered in the Legislature in February when lawmakers held a public hearing on Senate Bill 1551, a universal background check measure. But the bill never gained traction in the Senate. Lawmakers tried to find a compromise measure late in the session, but the deal never materialized.
Recreational marijuana
-- Senators were also wary of Senate Bill 1556, which would have asked voters whether the state should legalize recreational marijuana use, and allowed the state to write the rules. Oregon voters still may have the last word, as at least two groups are mounting initiative campaigns to put measures on the November ballot that would make it legal to grow, possess and use pot.
Legal Aid
-- House Bill 4143 divided lawyers and drew strong opposition from business groups -- ultimately failing on the Senate floor. It would have diverted unclaimed class-action damages to Legal Aid instead of returning them to the defendant.
Driver cards
-- The House passed House Bill 4054, which would have rewritten the ballot title for a referendum on the November ballot on whether to grant driver cards to Oregonians who can’t prove they’re here legally. Supporters wanted to give the referendum a better chance of passing, but the bill died in the Senate without a vote after it became apparent it didn’t have enough support to pass.
-- Harry Esteve, Christian Gaston, Yuxing Zheng
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First comes the honeymoon, then the culture shock, followed by an adjustment period and finally mastery. That’s the “U-Curve” trajectory typically experienced by international students, according to the Berkeley International Office. But for UC Berkeley’s two-dozen new MasterCard Foundation scholars from Sub-Saharan Africa, many of whom have survived civil wars and other obstacles to get here, the transition so far has been shwari (smooth in Swahili).
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Chosen for their academic prowess, give-back ethos and financial disadvantage, Berkeley’s 2015 crop of MasterCard Foundation scholars hail from Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Senegal, Togo, Burkina Faso, Botswana and South Sudan.
Sure, they may miss their families, get sick of eating dining-commons food, stress out during midterms and finals and grow tired of explaining that Africa is not a country. But they say none of that eclipses this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of a free-ride scholarship at Berkeley to experience new things, gain expertise and bring it home.
“I want to be a pioneer,” says Fanice Mangoja Nyatigo, 19, of Nairobi, Kenya, who plans to study bioengineering so she can help advance medical research and practice in her homeland.
UC Berkeley is one of six U.S. universities and 21 global partners in the MasterCard Foundation Scholars Program, a $500 million education initiative launched in 2012 that funds the education of some 15,000 young people primarily from Sub-Saharan Africa. The program is expected to bring more than 100 African undergraduate and graduate students to Berkeley. The other participating universities are Stanford, Arizona State, Michigan State, Duke University and Wellesley College.
The fast-growing African continent is home to at least 1 billion people, two-thirds of whom are college-age or younger. But the demand for places at colleges in Africa far exceeds the supply, spurring hundreds of thousands of young Africans to seek higher education overseas.
Projects like the MasterCard Foundation Scholars Program allow for the best and brightest who lack the financial means for overseas study to come to a top university like Berkeley, then return to their homeland to use what they’ve learned to make positive impacts in their communities as leaders, says Martha Saavedra, associate director of the Center for African Studies, which administers the program at UC Berkeley.
Among this year’s scholars is Akol Kuan, 21, who applied for the MasterCard Foundation scholarship while at high school in a refugee camp in Kenya. His family fled South Sudan, which became an independent state in 2011 following decades of civil war and is currently ravaged by inter-ethnic warfare.
He is one of 20 siblings and a first-generation college-goer, which puts him under significant pressure. But he says he can handle it.
“So much is expected of me, but I will find a balance because you don’t perform well when you take on too much,” he says,
Kuan plans to major in civil engineering and get involved in club soccer and environmental conservation. He’d also like to hone his public speaking skills. As for the big picture, he wants to start an NGO to build South Sudan’s infrastructure from the ground up.
“Investing in South Sudan needs to happen, and the government is not doing it,” he says.
As for his time at Berkeley so far? “I like it,” he says. “It’s the honeymoon.”
SEE ALSO:
The MasterCard Foundation Program bring Sub-Saharan students to UC Berkeley
Searching for the Berkeley spark in Sub-Saharan Africa
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The current version of this article contains a minor change as of May 30, 2013. Back on December 23, I made my first formal attempt at explaining the intricacies of the NBA player contract of Chandler Parsons. As a mere fan (and not an actual NBA insider or team executive), I based that piece on educated conclusions using the information available to me at the time. Unfortunately, only after putting out my prior article was I made aware of additional information that greatly impacts the overall analysis of Parsons’s contract. Hence, the following is a (more informed) analysis of one of the more interesting player contracts in the NBA today.
The current version of this article contains a minor change as of May 30, 2013.
Back on December 23, I made my first formal attempt at explaining the intricacies of the NBA player contract of Chandler Parsons. As a mere fan (and not an actual NBA insider or team executive), I based that piece on educated conclusions using the information available to me at the time. Unfortunately, only after putting out my prior article was I made aware of additional information that greatly impacts the overall analysis of Parsons’s contract. Hence, the following is a (more informed) analysis of one of the more interesting player contracts in the NBA today.
Parsons Not Subject to Rookie Scale Salary Rules
The NBA has specific rules governing first round draft picks and the contracts they can sign, commonly referred to as rookie scale contracts. Such contracts are four-year deals, fully guaranteed for the first two years, with team options for each of the third and fourth years (each of which must be exercised almost an entire season in advance) and a right of first refusal after that.
However, Parsons was not a first round pick. He was selected in the second round (the 38th overall selection) of the 2011 NBA Draft. Therefore, he is not subject to such rules. Second round picks can be signed to contracts much like any other player. Unlike first rounders, second rounders do not have any scale salary by which a team may exceed the salary cap to sign them. Most second rounders receive either a one- or a two-year deal at the league minimum salary. Such contracts are oftentimes non- or only partially guaranteed. The only ways in which a team may sign a second round pick to anything more are for that team to have either cap room or a salary cap exception (such as the Mid-Level Exception) at its disposal.
The Contract Structure
In December 2011, the Rockets signed Parsons to a four-year, $3,629,500 contract (using a sliver of remaining salary cap room they had at the time). Like the contracts previously given to Jermaine Taylor and Chase Budinger, Parsons agreed to bind himself to the team for four years in exchange for an increased salary in the first year ($850,000 instead of the league minimum of $473,604) and second year ($888,250 instead of the league minimum $762,195), both of which are fully guaranteed.
However, Parsons seems to have had a better agent than either Taylor or Budinger.
Whereas Taylor and Budinger agreed to give the Rockets fully non-guaranteed Years 3 and 4 (together with a team option on Year 4), Parsons and his agent negotiated for additional financial security. By Parsons having not been waived by the Rockets before January 1, 2013, Parsons’s salary for the 2013-14 season ($926,500) became partially guaranteed for $600,000; and if Parsons is not waived by June 30, 2013, his 2013-14 salary becomes fully guaranteed. Furthermore, if the Rockets do not waive Parsons by January 1, 2014, his salary for the 2014-15 season ($964,750) becomes partially guaranteed for $624,771 (the same percentage partial guarantee as in Year 3); and if Parsons is not waived by June 30, 2014, his 2014-15 salary becomes fully guaranteed.
The key bit of new information relating to the Parsons contract?
It also has a team option on Year 4.
This means that, despite having already guaranteed Parsons $624,771 for the 2014-15 season, the Rockets have the right to decline their team option, essentially “eat” that money, and make Parsons a restricted free agent. If the Rockets instead exercise that team option, then when his contract expires in 2015, Parsons will be an unrestricted free agent.
What Happens Next?
1. Parsons is “stuck” on this contract until at least 2014.
The Parsons Contract was negotiated at a time when it was not certain whether he would become a legit NBA player. At that time, this deal was quite a coup for both Parsons and his representatives. Now, however, with Parsons playing at a very high level, the contract may seem like a long-term (financial) prison sentence.
First off, there is little incentive for the Rockets to let Parsons out of his dirt-cheap deal. They have him locked up on a very favorable deal for this year and two more after that. For a team trying to manage its cap situation in order to add a second (or even third) star player, giving Parsons a raise before his contract is up in 2015 might jeopardize those plans.
And even if the Rockets wanted to give Parsons a raise before 2015, there really is no feasible way to do that without risking his departure to another team (with the possible exception of a renegotiation-and-extension, discussed below).
Since only Year 4 of Parsons’s deal is a team option (as per CBA rules, contracts can only contain one option year), there is no way to make Parsons a free agent before 2014 without waiving him. Unfortunately for the Rockets, Parsons is such a good player that there is no way he would clear waivers — other teams would be climbing over each other to get a chance to claim him off waivers. So, unless the Rockets want to give Chandler away to another team without receiving anything in exchange, they need to simply hold onto him on his current deal. At least through next season.
Rockets GM Daryl Morey even brings up — perhaps against his better judgment — that Parsons approached the team about restructuring his contract. See Zach Lowe’s interview with Morey here, and skip to the 16:40 mark.
2. An extension of Parsons’s contract is not a viable alternative.
Because Parsons is a veteran on a four-year deal (other than a first round draft pick on a rookie scale contract), he is technically eligible for an extension from the Rockets in 2014. Many fans have suggested that the Rockets give Parsons an extension in order to give him a substantial raise and keep him under contract beyond 2015. However, the rules governing contract extensions do not make this a financially feasible option for Parsons.
Under the CBA, a player may not receive an extension giving him a raise in excess of 107.5% of his salary in the last season of the contract being extended. For Parsons, an extension would cap his 2015-16 salary at $1,037,106. I’m guessing that Parsons (and his agent) feels that he can do better than that on the open market.
So, go ahead and cross the contract extension route off the list of possibilities, unless . . .
3. A contract renegotiation remains a possibility but is not in the team’s best interests.
While a contract extension is not economically feasible for Parsons, there remains the possibility of a contract renegotiation with a simultaneous extension. Only teams that are under the salary cap can renegotiate player contracts. For instance, the Oklahoma City Thunder implemented this “renegotiate-and-extend” approach with Nick Collison in 2010 (you can read more about that deal here). While the 2011 CBA changed the rules about these deals to limit the decrease in salary a player could accept in the first year of his extension to 40% (making Collison’s particular contract impossible to do now), the Rockets could still position themselves to keep Parsons locked up via a simultaneous renegotiation and extension.
However, this approach would seriously hamper the Rockets’ overall rebuilding strategy.
First of all, the Rockets would need to be under the cap during the 2014-15 season for this to even be possible. That would mean that the team likely failed in its attempts to acquire a second star player between now and then. It also means that the team did not even use its cap room during the summer of 2014 or at the February 2014 trade deadline to otherwise improve the team beyond 2014. Unless Parsons has developed into a bona fide perenniel All-Star caliber player by that time, there is little incentive to jeopardize the team’s cap situation — and its continued pursuit of that second star player — for the sake of locking up a good (but not great) player.
Also, even with a Collison-like contract in place, Parsons would have a relatively substantial cap figure locked in on the Rockets’ roster entering the summer of 2015, when the contracts of Jeremy Lin and Omer Asik are set to come off the books and the Rockets possibly positioned to add another significant piece to the puzzle.
4. Letting Parsons hit restricted free agency is risky but may be how team does right by him.
The renegotiation-and-extension route assumes that the Rockets do, in fact, pick up their team option on Parsons. However, if the Rockets (1) didn’t have the requisite cap room available to accomplish a renegotiate-and-extend deal, (2) felt that they could potentially lock up Parsons longer-term at a more reasonable cost through restricted free agency than if he hits unrestricted free agency in 2015 and/or (3) feared that Parsons would hold a grudge against the team if it kept him on his dirt-cheap deal for a fourth season, then they might opt to decline Parsons’s team option and allow him to hit restricted free agency in 2014.
Because Parsons would have been under the same contract with the Rockets for three seasons (2011-2014), the Rockets would have full Bird rights on Parsons and could exceed the salary cap to re-sign him to a five-year deal at any amount (up to a “James Harden-level” max contract). Presumably, this option would only be explored if the team had already used up most of its cap space to add a second star player or other significant pieces.
Making Parsons a restricted free agent would likely be a huge show of good faith on the Rockets’ part, but it would not be without great risk. Many of us remember what happened to the Cleveland Cavaliers back in 2004. The Cavs decided to do Carlos Boozer a solid and decline their cheap team option in order to make Boozer a restricted free agent, looking to lock him up long-term. Unfortunately, once Boozer became a free agent, the Utah Jazz swooped in with a huge contract offer. Boozer bolted Cleveland for greener pastures, and the Cavs were left holding the bag.
Also, from a pure numbers standpoint, it is unlikely that the Rockets could save enough money over the course of a new deal with Parsons signed in 2014 — either with Houston or in an offer sheet with another team — versus one he signs as an unrestricted free agent in 2015 to justify foregoing the opportunity to keep Parsons at his currently-scheduled $964,750 salary for 2014-15. Remember, if the Rockets decline their team option, Parsons would still pocket $624,771 from Houston (which would count against the cap) on top of whatever he could get in free agency.
However, if the Rockets are confident that Parsons would work with them on a reasonable long-term deal without bolting as a free agent, their show of good faith may be reciprocated, to everyone’s advantage.
5. Letting Parsons hit free agency in 2015 may best help the Rockets’ cap situation.
Notwithstanding the potential benefits above of taking care of Parsons in 2014, the fact that the Rockets (even with the addition of another significant piece in the next three years) might possibly have substantial salary cap room in 2015 means that there may be much to be gained by exercising that team option, keeping Parsons on his contract for a fourth season, and letting him hit unrestricted free agency in 2015.
Because of Parsons’s miniscule 2014-15 salary, his cap hold on the Rockets’ books when he hits free agency until he is signed (either by the Rockets or another team) will be a paltry $1,833,025.
This means that the Rockets could use all of its available cap room in 2015 — except for that $1,833,025 cap hold amount — to pursue a major free agent (such as Kevin Love, who can opt out of his contract with the Minnesota Timberwolves that summer), then later exceed the salary cap to re-sign Parsons to any amount using his Bird rights.
Admittedly, this approach will involve asking Parsons and his representatives to trust in the organization to do right by Parsons once the dust settles on the team’s other summer plans. This may be a tough task, given that the team will have already foregone the chance to do right by Parsons in 2014 by picking up its option on the fourth season. Parsons’s agent will certainly market his client around the league to gauge his “fair value” as a free agent, so numbers would likely be discussed while other plans play out.
Conclusion
Barring a trade, the Houston Rockets and Chandler Parsons are stuck with each other under his current contract until at least 2014. An apparent victory for the player at the time of its original execution, the contract is now one of the most team-friendly in the entire league. The Rockets have Parsons locked up until 2015 for a mere pittance. They also have the option to either make Parsons a restricted free agent in 2014 or keep him around for a fourth cheap year and let him hit unrestricted free agency in 2015. Parsons’s low salary (and his cap hold in the summer of 2015) will position the Rockets nicely to continue to add significant pieces over the next several years.
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It sounds too good to be true and for now, it is. But what if some of the benefits of exercise could be packed into a pill? Scientists are beginning to develop “exercise pills” that show some potential, according to two new papers—a review published in the journal Trends in Pharmacological Sciences and another small study published in the journal Cell Metabolism.
“Everyone’s looking for a pill to replace exercise, but we’re just not there yet,” says the first study’s co-author Ismail Laher, professor in the department of anesthesiology, pharmacology and therapeutics at the University of British Columbia in Canada. “It’s not going to make a couch potato into Arnold Schwarzenegger.”
MORE: Here’s The Amount Of Exercise That Lowers Breast Cancer Risk
So-called “exercise pills” are made from compounds that have been shown—mostly in studies done in animals—to mimic one or more of the effects of exercise, like developing new blood vessels, forming new mitochondria in cells or increasing the body’s capacity for exercise. “They’ll let you get muscles that are stronger and faster and reach your exercise goals much quicker,” Laher says.
But no single pill can reproduce every benefit exercise has on the body. Popping an exercise pill won’t flood you with endorphins, for instance, while also making your bones stronger. speeding up the blood flow through your arteries and making your heart beat faster, Laher says. “It’s a very small slice of the pie.”
What exercise pills can do is largely localized to muscles, the new review finds. “You’re increasing efficiency of ATP, the currency by which every cell goes about its daily life,” Laher says.
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MORE: It’s Getting Harder To Lose Weight, Study Shows
In the second study, researchers biopsied the muscles of four healthy men after they exercised vigorously for 10 minutes. After analyzing the samples, the researchers discovered 1,004 molecular changes in the muscle—most of which scientists hadn’t before attributed to exercise. “While scientists have long suspected that exercise causes a complicated series of changes to human muscle, this is the first time we have been able to map exactly what happens,” said study co-author Dr. Nolan Hoffman, of the Charles Perkins Centre and Faculty of Science at the University of Sydney in Australia, in a statement. This new research, he said, would allow scientists to use this information to design a drug that mimics the positive changes from exercise.
The real promise of exercise pills is not to replace exercise, Laher says, but to help people who have reduced muscle ability due to paralysis, obesity, stroke or spinal cord injuries. For those who aren’t physically able to exercise, the hope is that they can recover more muscle control when they use pills alongside physical therapy.
The quest for the exercise pill has been ongoing since 2004, and the review looks at several compounds that can trigger at least one beneficial exercise effect. Before any single one is determined to be the silver bullet, much more research—in humans, especially—is needed. Scientists also have to figure out effective dosages in people and possible side effects.
Even with the promise of these compounds, sweating isn’t off your to-do list. “We’re in early days,” Laher says.
Write to Mandy Oaklander at [email protected].
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TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) - The Honduran Congress approved on Thursday the creation of a new military-style police force, which is aimed at countering violence spawned by Mexican drug cartels that use the country to transport cocaine.
The new security law approved a force that will comprise 5,000 officers and will also allow judges and prosecutors to process drug-trafficking cases electronically from outside the Central American country for their own safety.
Honduras, home to the world’s highest murder rate, has seen drug-related violence grow dramatically in recent years as traffickers use its territory to transport cocaine from producers in South America to consumers in the United States and Europe.
“Violence is in every neighborhood and every town and it needs to be confronted,” said Honduran Security Minister Arturo Corrales. The Honduran army has led the fight against drug gangs until now.
President Porfirio Lobo is expected to sign the measure into law in the next few days.
In Mexico, where almost 80,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence since 2007, President Enrique Pena Nieto is seeking to build up a new militarized police force to tackle the country’s drug war instead of the army.
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Sources with direct knowledge of the circumstances surrounding the dismissal of a junior college recruit raised questions Saturday about the university’s response to KWTX’s report that top administration officials ordered athletic department officials to kick the player off the team and remove his scholarship in what the player’s attorney calls an “egregious denial of basic due process.”
Jeremy Faulk. (Photo by Randy Davis)
Jeremy Faulk, a junior college recruit who was kicked off the team and stripped of his scholarship before the season started because of a Title IX investigation, won an appeal against Baylor and had his scholarship reinstated in July, KWTX has learned.
However, a Title IX investigation that has remained open for more than four months has kept Faulk off the field.
Patty Crawford, who resigned her position as Title IX coordinator this week after filing a retaliation complaint against Baylor Senior Vice President for Operations and CFO Reagan Ramsower, said in secret audio recordings obtained by KWTX, that it was Ramsower who made her turn the accused player's name over to administration before Faulk was dismissed.
In a statement Friday, however, Executive Associate Athletic Director Nick Joos said the decision to remove Faulk was "based upon violations of the university and athletic department Code of Conduct...and did not require other Executive Council members nor Title IX staff involvement.
The carefully worded statement rejects concerns Crawford expressed during the secretly recorded meeting about the legality of the dismissal and confirms that interim head football coach Jim Grobe ultimately dismissed the player, but it does not explicitly deny that the orders to kick the player off the team came from top administrators including Ramsower and Associate General Counsel Doug Welch, whose name was also raised during Crawford’s meeting with the staffers.
On Friday, Baylor named Welch chief compliance officer, based on the recommendation of the Pepper Hamilton law firm that reviewed the school’s sexual assault scandal.
On Saturday, sources with direct knowledge confirmed that the directive to dismiss Faulk came from above.
Grobe informed Faulk of the dismissal, one knowledgeable source said, but had just recently arrived and barely even knew who the player was.
Jeff Sims, the coach he followed from Florida Atlantic to Garden City, told KWTX in an interview that he called Grobe after learning of the dismissal and that Grobe told him that “if Jeremy left the Title IX investigation would just go away.”
Faulk’s attorney, Richard Tate, also took issue with the statement, which he said “misses the point.”
“While it is true that participation in college athletics is a privilege and not a right, imposing the equivalent of the death penalty (expulsion from school) in a Title IX proceeding before the proceeding gets underway is illegal,” he said in an email.
“No matter how hard they try to say they did not expel him from school, they made it impossible for him to do anything other than leave. To say otherwise is disingenuous, dishonest and downright reprehensible.”
Faulk was recruited from Garden City Community College in Kansas, to which he transferred from Florida Atlantic University to follow his coach.
He spent the spring semester at Baylor, but in June he learned that a female student had talked with police about a sexual encounter she had with him and another man.
She didn’t want to press charges, and Faulk says the sex was consensual, but Baylor’s Title IX Office started to look into the case.
But before Faulk was interviewed, or even told what the specific allegation was, administration got his name and decided to strip him of his scholarship after learning of an incident at Florida Atlantic that campus officers there later described as a dorm prank.
Faulk and a teammate had walked into another teammate’s dorm room.
That teammate was under the covers, naked, with his girlfriend. Faulk and the other player teased them, saying they were going to pull the sheets off.
Police were called, but said the issue was being handled by the coaches.
“Coach Grobe called me in the office and told me the administration had to release me and he said there was nothing he could do. It was out of his hands,” Faulk said in an interview with KWTX.
Although he was technically still enrolled, Faulk, with no scholarship, and no money for housing, was left on the streets until his mother sent him enough money to get home.
“It was crazy because I went back home and I couldn’t even tell people around my city what happened. Everyone kept asking me and I didn’t know what to say so, to them I did something wrong,” he said.
He’s now back at Garden City Community College, from which he has already graduated.
He has been waiting, for more than four months, for a resolution to the Title IX case.
“It is the most egregious denial of basic due process that I have seen in 38 years of law practice. I could not have imagined that a person would be denied just the fundamental opportunity to defend himself,” Tate, said.
Tate, who practices in Richmond, agreed to represent Faulk for free after learning of the situation.
Faulk and Tate appealed to Baylor in June, saying Faulk lost his scholarship without any due process, and, in fact, without being provided with a reason.
“By the next day, they take this situation which was nothing more than a dormitory prank and they blow it out of proportion. They call it sexual harassment. Two strikes you’re out, and he was shocked,” Tate said.
On July 1, an appeals panel, comprised of three staff members from the school's Student Financial Aid Office, ruled in Faulk’s favor, and demanded reinstatement of Faulk’s scholarship, but Baylor officials countered that Faulk could not play football because the Title IX investigation was still underway.
Faulk says that as far as he knows, the investigation is still open, but he’s still not been provided with details about the specific accusations.
Sims, meanwhile, says Faulk has not been treated fairly.
“He busted his tail to become academically right, He busted his tail to prove he’s a good enough football player to be back to that level and then it’s like Groundhog Day, it’s rewind. And now he’s got to prove himself again,” Sims said.
“The only thing that’s been important through this whole process with the young ladies, with a guy like Jeremy, is Baylor. The name Baylor, the image of Baylor. I’m embarrassed how they treat their students,” he said.
Faulk’s abrupt dismissal surfaced in a meeting between athletic department staffers and Crawford.
KWTX earlier obtained secretly recorded audio from the meeting, during which she told the staffers she was “fighting very hard to have the authority to make sure this process is followed, and that we do get communication to the point where we have gotten agreements from university leadership that I will not divulge names, even, to anybody.”
She told the staffers that it would be a violation of her office’s policy to reveal a name and said if a player was kicked off a team based solely on a report of allegation, it would be “a disaster.”
One staff member asked her to “Go back to Jeremy Faulk.”
“How did they find out? Did you ever assess that? You ever find out how they found out?” the staffer asked.
“(Baylor Senior Vice President for Operations and CFO) Reagan Ramsower and those guys, how did they find out?” the staffer asked.
“Reagan is my boss,” Crawford replied.
“So I've been told I need to give names.”
Crawford, in a federal civil rights complaint, alleges that was subjected to retaliatory actions by Ramsower, according to a source with direct knowledge of the situation.
The complaint alleged Ramsowner took away her authority to handle Title IX complaints and accused her of “doing her job too well,” the source said.
A previous News 10 investigation revealed fired coach Art Briles learned of the accusation against Faulk by two regents who visited his office on May 13. Sources tell KWTX Faulk's case was presented to the board shortly after Pepper Hamilton's presentation and was "the straw that broke the camel's back" for some board members.
Click here for more KWTX "Baylor Fallout" coverage
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